Denizens of the desert; a book of southwestern mammals, birds, and reptiles, by Edmund C. Jaeger ..

DENIZENS

OF THE

"EDMUND C. JAEGER

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Denizens of the desert; a book of southwe

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The original of this book is in
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There are no known copyright restrictions in
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DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

NEST OF THE BLACK-THROATED SPARROW IN CACTUS

Denizens of the Desert

A book of Southwestern mammals,
birds, and reptiles

By
EDMUND C. JAEGER, B.Sc.

Member American Society of Mammalogists;
Author of ‘‘ The Mountain Trees of Southern California”

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

Boston and New York
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riversive Press Cambridge
1922

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY EDMUND C. JAEGER

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Va?

QLIs®
12

C2 SST.

The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE - MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

TO
DAVID DANIELS KECK
WHO SOUGHT OUT THE TRAILS WITH ME
AND WHOSE COMPANIONSHIP
AND SYMPATHETIC INTEREST IN NATURE
HAS BEEN A CONSTANT HELP
AND INCENTIVE

PREFACE

For the past ten years the writer has been an al-
most continual saunterer over mountain and
desert trails —a constant searcher of the wild
places of nature that he might know intimately
the green growing things and learn more of the
life-histories of the animals, birds, and insects
that dwell in the unfrequented and secluded
domains of the wild. It is with a desire to share
the pleasures derived from his observations and
studies that he sends forth these sketches of
the lives of the denizens of our Southwestern
deserts.

The peculiar physical and meteorological con-
ditions which have made the North American
deserts have likewise had their influence upon
the animals that came to inhabit them. The en-
vironmental forces have in many ways so much
modified their bodies and their behavior that
they are recognized as being extraordinarily
unique among animals, and the desert fauna
stands out as among the most distinct of the

Vili PREFACE

minor life-areas of the world. Since the stories of
the lives of few of them have ever been pre-
sented in popular form and untechnical lan-
guage, readers will find here set forth much new
and interesting information.

In some instances a didactic style of presen-
tation has been chosen. This has made it pos-
sible to give much valuable information that
could not have been included had the effort
always been made to write a ‘‘good story.”
Writers on natural-history subjects have, in their
desire to create interest and to bring their story
to a fitting climax, frequently conveyed im-
pressions concerning the behavior of animals
which were false or misleading.

The information concerning these birds and
animals has been gained in large part by obser-
vations in the field without trap or gun; for it
has been recognized that it is possible to ob-
tain true ideas concerning living creatures only
through sympathetic and friendly interest in
their habits and behavior under natural condi-
tions.

Rather than attempt to give the life-histories
of all of the many animal forms inhabiting the

PREFACE ix

desert region and burden the reader with many
repetitions, the writer has chosen typical species
from among the most interesting, noticeable,
and predominant orders, and has thus hoped to
give a broad view of the life of the region under
consideration.

Thanks are expressed to Mr. Robert Ander-
son, of the Riverside Junior College, and Mr.
J. C. Odell, of Occidental College, for their
kindly criticism; also to Mr. Wright M. Pierce,
Mr. Edwin Avery Field, and others for their aid
in furnishing many of the illustrations.

The writer recognizes the help he has gained
from the reading of the technical papers of spe-
cialists of animal ecology, and if in certain in-
stances he has seemed to have drawn freely from
their works, it is because he desires to bring to
the reader the contribution they have made to-
ward a fuller knowledge of the life-histories of
the animals considered. The writings of Dr.
Joseph Grinnell, Dr. Harold C. Bryant, Dr.
Edgar Alexander Mearns, Dr. J. Van Denburgh,
and Mr. Frank Stephens have been specially
consulted. Thanks are also due to Messrs.
G. P. Putnam’s Sons for permission to quote

x PREFACE

a part of a tale entitled ‘‘The Coyote and the
Beetle,”’ from Zufi Folk-Tales, by Frank Ham-
ilton Cushing. Much of the matter included in
the chapter on the California road-runner orig-
inally appeared in the pages of Saint Nicholas.
EDMUND C, JAEGER

Patm SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA
January, 1922

CONTENTS

THE CALIFORNIA ROAD-RUNNER

THE NEOTOMAS, OR PACK RATS, OF THE DESERT
Bitty Bos-TaIL, THE HERMIT Woop Rat

THE Spiny Pocket MIcE

Tue Cactus WREN

CATHERPES, THE CANON WREN

Betsy BOUNCE, THE ROCK WREN

THE ANTELOPE CHIPMUNK

THE ROuND-TAILED GROUND SQUIRREL AND NEAR
RELATIVES

ELEODES, THE BEETLE THAT STANDS ON HIS HEAD
Tue Mason BEES

Tue DESERT BIGHORN AND NEAR RELATIVES
Don COYOTE

Tue BATTLE OF THE REPTILES

THE PHAINOPEPLA

LATRODECTUS, THE POISONOUS

Tue LE ConTE THRASHER

Tue GNATCATCHERS AND VERDINS

Tue DESERT LYNx

107
II5
123
133
143
161
17I
179
189
199
209

xii CONTENTS

THE DESERT WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW
THE BLACK-TAILED HARE

CALLISAURUS, THE GRIDIRON-TAILED LIZARD
SAUROMALUS, THE CHUCKWALLA

THE SIDEWINDER

TESTUDO, THE DESERT TORTOISE

THE VINEGAROON

Tue DrEsERT HORNED LIZARD

SPILOGALE, THE SPOTTED SKUNK

217
221

233
239
245
255
265
271
281

ILLUSTRATIONS

NEST OF THE BLACK-THROATED SPARROW IN

Cactus Frontispiece

Photograph by Wright M. Pierce

TRACKS OF A RoAD-RUNNER
Photograph by J. Smeaton Chase

RoaD-RUNNERS ABOUT ONE-THIRD GROWN
Photograph by Wright M. Pierce

RoapD-RUNNER
TRADE Rat’s HoME IN A ROCK-CREVICE
GROUND PLAN OF THE TRADE Rat’s NEST

An ARROYO OF THE DESERT MoUNTAINS — AN
IDEAL ENVIRONMENT FOR SMALL RODENTS

FLASK-SHAPED NESTS OF CACTUS WREN IN OPUN-
TIA CACTUS
Photograph by Wright M. Pierce
Rocky GORGE ENVIRONMENT, COLORADO DESERT:
WASHINGTONIA PALM IN FOREGROUND
From a drawing by Carl Eytel
ANTELOPE CHIPMUNK FEEDING
Photographs by Edwin A. Field

A DEsERT WasH, OR Dry, SANDY STREAM-BED:
THE HoME OF THE LE CONTE THRASHER, THE
Kit Fox, AND THE COYOTE

4

32
34

72

82

100

120

XIV ILLUSTRATIONS

DEsERT BiGHORN (Ovis cremnobates) 136
Photograph of a mounted group by courtesy of the Cali-
fornia Academy of Sciences

DEseERT Lynx 146

CovoTE AT Bay 146

Photograph furnished by Biological Survey, U.S. De-
partment of Agriculture

CoyvoTE-PRooF HENHOUSE MADE BY THE CAHUILLA

INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 150
A DESERT CANON 174
NEST OF THE LE CONTE THRASHER 194

Photograph by Wright M. Pierce
Younc Le Conte THRASHER 206
Photograph by Wright M. Pierce
NEST OF THE VERDIN IN A Cat’s-CLaw BusH 206
BLACK-TAILED HARE 232
CHUCKWALLA 240
THE SIDEWINDER, OR HORNED RATTLESNAKE 248
THE Patti RATTLER (Crotalus mitchellii) 248

A DEsERT TORTOISE WHICH HAS JUST CRAWLED
FROM ITs WINTER-HIDING BETWEEN THE Rocks 258

VINEGAROON 270

DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

THE CALIFORNIA ROAD-RUNNER

DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

THE CALIFORNIA ROAD-RUNNER
(Geococcyx californianus)

OF all the feathered denizens of the desert there
is none that has such an amazing stock of pecu-
liarities or so many odd and interesting com-
binations of absurd manners to show us as that
unique bird, the California road-runner. He is
the desert’s hermit bird wag, as full of comi-
cal manners and as resourceful in mischief as
the fun-loving jay or inquisitive nutcracker,
yet, unlike these birds, never obtrusive in his
familiarity. And how he does love sports!
Every morning he goes down on the trail below
my shanty and saunters idly along waiting for
me to come with my pail for water, well know-
ing that I will give him chase and afford him
the fine fun of beating me to the corner. Just
as I am about upon him, he leaps into the
brush out of sight and is seen no more for an

4 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

hour or two. This born gamester has been
found time and again sportively pursuing the
ends of surveyor’s chains as they were dragged
along by the linemen, or seen on golf grounds
running down stray-driven balls with the
eagerness of a playful dog.

Byron said of that sagacious and celebrated
wit, Richard Sheridan:

Nature formed but one such man
And broke the die in moulding Sheridan.

If we like to phrase it so, we may surely say
with equal aptness concerning the road-runner:

Nature formed but one such bird
And broke the die in moulding him.

Yes, he is the one bird you never mistake for
any other. The bristle-tipped topknot which he
raises and lowers at will, the reptilian-like face
with its deep-slit mouth, and the long tail which
so unmistakably registers his emotions, make
him a bird of most singular appearance.

The road-runner’s speckled coat of feathers
is a patchwork of varied colors. The feathers of
the head and neck are dark steel-blue, of the
upper parts of the body, bronzy or coppery

ROAD-RUNNERS ABOUT ONE-THIRD GROWN

THE CALIFORNIA ROAD-RUNNER_ 5

green, changing to purplish violet and green on
the upper middle tail feathers. The outer tail
feathers are steel-blue with green and violet
reflections. Everywhere, except on the rump,
the upper parts are streaked with white or
brownish-white, especially the wings — this
white and buff marking being produced by an
odd fringelike fraying-out of the edges of the
feathers. The peculiar bare space around the
eye is beautifully marked with blue and orange.
The only real somberness about him is the
brown, tawny, and white that covers his breast,
throat, and sides. Yet so intricately and won-
derfully placed are the units in this mosaic of
color that the bird appears almost as brown or
gray as the earth on which he runs. It is only
now and then when you are near to him that
you catch the iridescence and regal color spen-
dor of his coat. These color markings are the
same for both sexes and it is hard to tell them
apart.

This strange cousin of the cuckoo has earned
his name from his apparent delight in sprinting
along roadways, especially when pursued by
horsemen or moderately slow-going vehicles.

6 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

In the picturesque old days of California, when
tourists were frequently driven over country
roads in tallyho coaches, it was no uncommon
sight to see this bird; his way of running a half-
mile or so in front of the fast trotting horses was
long remembered by the sight-seers who never
tired of telling about their introduction to the
bird racer. Another common name, ‘‘chap-
arral cock,’’ is given in allusion to his living in
the chaparral or scrub forest of the semi-
deserts; and he is called “ground cuckoo”
because of his inability to leave the ground in
long-sustained flight.

Formerly the range of the road-runner in-
cluded the grassy plains, chaparral-covered
hills, and arid mesas from Kansas to the Pacific
Ocean, and from Central California to Mexico.
With the settlement of the land and the increase
in the number of gunmen, this unique bird is
rapidly becoming rare, and the familiar Maltese-
cross footprints which he leaves along dusty
roads are seldom seen any more except in the
wildest portions of his former range.

The road-runner makes no regular migrations
and is seldom seen except when he is alone.

THE CALIFORNIA ROAD-RUNNER 7

Only twice have I observed him in company
with his mate. Sort of a Bedouin is he, a thor-
ough son of the desert, and impatient of the
restraints of communal life. The accusation of
being a vagabond like the shiftless coyote can
never be brought against him. On the desert
the road-runner exhibits a marked preference
for mesquite thickets. He fully realizes what
excellent protection the thorny, low-growing
trees offer, and once he chooses a clump of
mesquites for his ‘‘stamping grounds,” he
seldom leaves the vicinity and may be found
there year after year.

Like a policeman the road-runner apparently
has his beats, and any one who watches him day
after day will be surprised to note how regular
and punctual he is in passing certain points
at definite times. An invalid on the Colorado
Desert recently called my attention to the fact
that a road-runner passed her porch regularly at
12.25 o'clock every day for over a week, never
varying by more than a minute or two. A
gentleman, who some months ago put up a new
board fence, tells me that a road-runner now
amuses himself almost daily by jumping up on

8 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

the upper rail and running at top speed the full
length of one side of the fence. The peculiar
thing about it is that he invariably does it at
the same time of the day — just about noon.

Persons who have tried to make a pet of the
‘“‘pasiano,”’ as the Mexicans like to call this
lanky, ludicrous-feathered wit, find him so mis-
chievous that he often proves himself a source
of endless annoyance. A Mr. Dresser, of Mata-
moras, referred to by Dr. Ridgway, who had
one partially domesticated, found he could not
let it remain in the house at all. ‘‘It would hide
and steal everything it could carry off and was
particularly fond of tearing up letters and up-
setting the inkstand. It was never caged or
tied up and would frequently pay the neighbors
a visit, always returning before evening. The
bird had a singular antipathy to a tame parrot,
and whenever the latter was let out of the cage,
it would get into a rage, and either go to the
housetop or decamp to the neighbors.”

In spite of his prankish, sportive nature, the
Mexicans look upon the road-runner as a pur-
veyor of good luck and a very desirable neigh-
bor, and he is not unwelcome when he comes,

THE CALIFORNIA ROAD-RUNNER 9

as he often does after getting acquainted,
into the yard to share a bit of grain with the
barn fowls.

Last night I threw out a whole panful of
“‘left-overs’’ to the birds and antelope chip-
munks. This morning almost before daylight
there were signs of trouble in the yard. When I
went out to see what was up, I found Betsy
Bounce, the rock wren, and half a dozen of
her feathered kindred sitting around on rocks
close by, vigorously scolding and uttering notes
of protest while they saw the morsels they so
much wanted gobbled up by a road-runner.
Playing the bully, he had stationed himself in
the center of the supply, and was paying no
more attention to their rounds of scolding than
to their nervous fidgetings. Only when he had
picked up every crumb did he desist eating.
Then with an indifferent air he ran down the
trail, mounted his favorite perch —an old
mesquite hitching-post — and began puffing
out his feathers.

The pasiano’s appetite is as queer as his looks.
He eats everything you would not expect a bird
to eat. Seemingly bent on testing the edibility

10 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

of everything that runs or crawls, he swallows
horned toads, grasshoppers, mice, centipedes,
millipedes, cutworms, spiders, bumblebees, and
occasionally even snakes, wood rats, and new-
born rabbits. Cactus fruits and the berries of
the sumac are among his vegetable foods. This
bird has a penchant for meat, and his flesh-
eating habits sometimes get the better of him —
for instance, when he finds the meat set as bait
in traps. Too often the trapper, making his
“rounds” in the morning, finds the feathers of
some ill-fated road-runner which was caught by
the steel jaws and in turn eaten up by some
coyote or fox that found him fluttering help-
lessly in the trap.

The road-runner has extraordinary ability
as a stalker of rapid-flying insects. This is at-
tested by the fact that in the stomach of a
road-runner taken near San Diego, California,
thirty-six cicadas were found — insects which
the entomologist always finds very difficult to
take on the wing.! Again and again I have
seen him leap in air and snap up some great

1 University of California Publications in Zodlogy, vol. 17,
No. 5.

THE CALIFORNIA ROAD-RUNNER 11

grasshopper that was desperately winging his
way to safety. Always after the bird caught his
prey, it has been amusing to me to see him
standing in proud pose gazing into blank space
and, with a soliloquizing air, losing himself
in self-complimentary contemplations over his
victory. In the meanwhile his long tail was
generally moving delicately up and down like
the balance-arm of a scale.

Lizards are the pasiano’s chief fare; these he
cleverly picks off the rocks and one whack of his
bill is sufficient to kill them. So fond is this bird
of lizards that he has received the common
name of “‘lizard-eater.’”” Especially during the
nesting season are many reptiles taken. The
baby birds are almost raised on them. Dr.
Harold Bryant ranks the road-runner as one
of the worst natural enemies to which lizards
and snakes are exposed.

Early in May I saw a funny sight, when, with
a whir of wings, a road-runner sprang down
upon an ill-starred lizard and almost literally
pinned him to the sand as he stuck him with his
bill. As is usual the lizard disjointed and sur-
rendered his tail in the onset. The road-runner

12 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

picked up the lizard’s body and would have
picked up the dismembered tail also, but he was
at a loss to know how to do it. How could he,
when his jaws were already pried wide apart
by the reptile’s body, pick up in addition the
wriggling, squirming tail? — that was the ques-
tion. He looked at it puzzlingly and with cu-
riosity, and tried again and again to pick it
up without putting down the rest of his prize.
He seemed to be suspicious that the tailless
reptile once down might run away while the
cast-off appendage was being picked up. He
would run no risk. In some manner the body of
the lizard must be adequately compressed be-
tween the jaws to bring the ends of the man-
dibles sufficiently close together to hold, in
addition to the body, the delectable but recalci-
trant tail. And so several times the mandibles
were firmly pressed together until the lizard’s
bones were well cracked. The obstreperous tail
was then picked up and the bird, holding his
head high in air, ran off with his wriggling prize,
under a mesquite tree, over the rocks and into
the brush.

It is not often that you run across the nest

THE CALIFORNIA ROAD-RUNNER 13

of this curious dweller of the deserts, and I was
filled with emotion when a few days later I was
led to the nest and found the mother sitting on
a pile of sticks, the ill-made home placed some
seven feet above ground in a juniper shrub.
With her mottled and speckled plumage she was
sO very inconspicuous that I am sure I should
never have seen her had she not jumped off the
nest as I approached within a few feet of it.
What interested me as the days went by was
not so much the rude home, lined with almost
everything from a snake skin to bits of manure,
or the yellowish egg within it, but the patient
mother, who sat almost seven weeks on the
nest, first with the eggs and then with the
young. The period of incubation was not
unusually long nor were the birdlings slow of
growth that the mother bird had to stay on the
nest so long. It was her strange method of
hatching her eggs. As though she dreaded the
ordeals incident to caring for a whole brood of
awkward, gawky, gluttonous, clamoring young-
sters of the same age at once, the eggs were laid
at considerable intervals and the incubation
began as soon as the first was laid. Thus the

14 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

first of the brood was all ready to leave the nest
when the last ungainly birdlings were breaking
from the shell.1_ How many insects, centipedes,
and lizards disappeared down the throats of
those lusty youngsters is hard even to imagine;
for they were always dreadfully hungry and
often fed.

If a female road-runner is approached when
on the nest, she generally remains quiet until
the intruder is right upon her; then she slips
over the back of the nest and flies a short dis-
tance to safety, but where she can still see the
unwelcome caller. At times she has been known
to permit herself to be caught rather than for-
sake her young.

A member of the Cooper Ornithological Club
(Mr. J. R. Pemberton) gives a most interesting
report concerning the actions of a female road-
runner whose nest he found some ten feet above
ground in a sycamore tree. As the observer
began climbing up to the nest, the bird hopped
to the ground.

1 Further observations of nesting road-runners has con-
vinced me that this procedure is not always followed, but that
the habit is peculiar to the individual. Often incubation is
delayed until all or most of the set of eggs is laid.

THE CALIFORNIA ROAD-RUNNER 15

“Immediately,” says Mr. Pemberton, “‘it be-
gan to squirm, scramble, and drag itself away
across an open space and in full view. The bird
was simulating a broken leg instead of a broken
wing! The bird held its wings closed through-
out the demonstration, though frequently fall-
ing over on its side in its enthusiasm. The
whole performance was kept entirely in my
view, the bird gradually working away from the
tree until it was some thirty-five feet distant,
when it immediately ran back to the base of
the tree and repeated the whole show. I had
been so interested up to now that I had failed
to examine the nest, which, when looked into,
contained five young probably a week old.
When I got to the ground the bird continued
its ‘stunt’ rather more frantically than before,
and in order to encourage the bird I followed,
and was pleased to see it remain highly con-
sistent until I was decoyed to a point well out-
side the grove. Here the bird ran suddenly
away at full speed and in a direction still away
from the nest.”

There are many versions of the story which
points out the chaparral cock as a killer of

16 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

rattlesnakes and the number grows as the tale is
peddled from mouth to mouth of imaginative
story-tellers. There is always the rattlesnake
who was caught asleep and. surrounded by a
circlet of cholla cactus joints by a clever road-
runner. The rattlesnake wakes up and, realiz-
ing that he cannot escape, bites himself and
dies. Many frills and variations are put in to
make the story appear real. When you ask the
narrator if he witnessed the incident himself, he
always says he knows it is true, but ‘‘somebody
else told me.”’

“This,”’ says Major Bendire, ‘‘is a very plau-
sible story, and while I am only too well aware
of the spines of the cholla cactus, I know that
such a hedge proves no barrier to these snakes
and that they do not mind such obstructions
in the least, passing over without touching
them. I consider the story on a par with the
generally accepted belief of hunters and fron-
tiersmen in the West, that rattlesnakes will not
cross over horsehair ropes when laid around
one’s bed when camping out. I was a firm be-
liever in the statement, and made use of this
snake protector for a number of years; but at

THE CALIFORNIA ROAD-RUNNER 17

last my faith was rudely shattered by seeing a
medium-sized rattlesnake deliberately crawling
over such a rope which I had stretched around
my tent. The snake paid no attention to the
hair rope, but slightly curved its body where
about to come in contact with it, gliding over
without touching it, and, finding a sunny spot
at the side of the tent, coiled up to take a rest,
part of its body lying directly on the rope.
Since witnessing the performance I have natu-
rally lost faith in the belief and have wished
many times since that it had not been so rudely
shaken, especially in sections of the country
where these reptiles are abundant and where
one is liable to find his blanket occupied by one
or more rattlers.”’

In winter as soon as the morning sun is out,
the road-runner may often be seen seeking the
rocky prominences. Hunting out some well-
sunned boulder, he turns his back toward the
rising sun and opens up and ruffles his feathers
in such a way that he catches every warm ray
and allows it to penetrate to the very skin. He
then presents a most unusual appearance, look-
ing more like a mammal than a bird. His like-

18 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

ness to an animal is produced in large part by the
long down-hanging tail and the full exposure of
the numerous soft down-like barbs at the bases
of the feathers which in their fluffiness look like .
thick fur. Of all times this is the best to see
a road-runner at close range. Purposely now

he seems to ignore your presence. Unwilling

that you should disturb him in his seeking of

comforts, he permits you to approach until you

can see the white ring of his eye. Several times

I have at such times quietly crept up on one

and watched him for ten minutes at a time

preening his feathers, running his bill through

them and gaping and stretching his long black

jaws.

There are three things in which the road-
runner’s poverty is great — his sense of smell,
his power of flight, his power of song. The sense
of smell in all birds is so vestigial that at best
they can probably smell no better than you
can when you have a cold in the head. Even |
vultures, we are told, must depend wholly on
their sense of sight for the detection of carrion
and in no degree on their sense of smell as might
be thought.

THE CALIFORNIA ROAD-RUNNER 19

The road-runner relies mostly on his trusty
legs for making his escape when pressed by an
enemy. He realizes what poor makeshifts of
flight organs his wings are, and like the ostrich
uses them mostly as aids in running or jumping.
It would be a mistake, though, to say that the
road-runner never flies in the true sense of the
term. Several times I have seen one, when
hard-pressed, fly almost an eighth of a mile.
I must admit, though, that the act was awk-
wardly done. If surprised when on rough
ground the fleeing road-runner generally spreads
his wings and volplanes across the gulleys. If
disturbed when on the mountain-side he may
glide downward a quarter of a mile to the
valley below. It is always a beautiful sight
and a feat most interesting to witness.

The pasiano has scarcely a vestige of song,
his only emotional utterances being a strange
whistling note (‘‘oo—t”’) ending in a loud
clatter, chipper, or crackling noise made by
rapidly bringing his mandibles together; and a
loud “‘coo”’ given most often during the nesting
season. The whistle sounds as though the
breath were being drawn in when it is produced.

20 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

But the ‘‘coo’”’ seems to be an explosive utter-
ance.

Many times during the spring days I have
been awakened in the morning by this last
peculiar song. So loudly and vigorously were
the notes ‘‘cook — cook — cook” given that I
could not help but fancy this almost-human
mischief-loving bird calling for me to get up to
cook for him his breakfast.

When the road-runner looks at you he almost
always gazes at you steadily with one eye, his
head being turned sidewise to you. Thus he
gets the best possible view of you. The curious
thing is, that at the same time he is viewing
you, he, with his other eye, may be scrutinizing
and recording an image of another object on
the other side of him — he watches two fields of
possible interest at the same time. Again, if
he wills it, he suppresses the vision of one eye,
ignores its sensations, and focuses his entire
attention on an object of interest before the
other. If you will watch him gazing skyward at
a hawk, you will see him with his head turned
sidewise, one eye turned downward (its vision
repressed) and the other upward, its attention

THE CALIFORNIA ROAD-RUNNER 21

being given over wholly to watching his avian
enemy. The road-runner’s vision is a hundred
times more acute than ours, especially with
respect to moving objects. He sees a thousand
things that our blind eyes never register.

THE NEOTOMAS, OR PACK, RATS, OF
THE DESERT

THE NEOTOMAS, OR PACK RATS, OF
THE DESERT

(Neotoma intermedia desertorum)

Not long ago three prospectors, new to the
game, decided to do something that all old
prospectors know better than to attempt.
They concluded to go partners on living to-
gether, each agreeing to pay his proportion of
the expenses. They had not known each other
long, they were men of different temperaments,
and this in itself was sufficient eventually to
bring disaffection among them. The “falling-
out” would have been postponed, however,
much longer had it not been for the part a
fourth party now played in the drama.

Within a fortnight after the men had settled
in their quarters, small trinkets began to dis-
appear. One man lost a small mirror, another
an aluminum comb, and a pair of much-valued
cuff-links. Every morning now more small
articles were missing or found misplaced, and
the men became sullen and began to accuse one
another of thievery. They argued, scolded, and

26 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

cursed in hot words and threatened each other
with blows if this constant stealing was not
brought to an end.

Finally, one morning at the end of the week,
after they had lost some especially treasured
articles, they had what is known as a ‘“‘genuine
fall-out,’ and each fellow declared in ugly
words his intention to shift and live by himself.
There was no use trying to get along further
together.

Each of the prospectors now began gathering
together his belongings ready for his departure,
and as they worked there were sullen looks
exchanged and grouchy expressions and threats.
One of the men, remembering he had left a
bridle out under a mesquite tree, went out to
get it. Several times before he had noticed a
queer pile of sticks and rubbish piled under the
tree, but it had never occurred to him that this
could be the dwelling-place of any living crea-
ture. On this particular morning he paused a
minute before it as he took his bridle down from
the crotch in which he had lodged it, and no-
ticed something bright, shining among the sticks.

What could this be? He ran his fingers in

THE NEOTOMAS, OR PACK RATS 27

among the sticks and picked out the shining
article. It was one of his cuff-links! ‘How on
earth did that ever get here?” he said to him-
self. Could this be the hiding-place where the
camp robber was secreting his treasure? He
picked up a stick and stirred further into the
pile. A great, big-eared rat ran out of the stack.
As he stirred up the mass of twigs further and
came to the inside of the nest, he found a small
box of medicine which he had claimed one of
the men had stolen only the night before.
What could it all mean! He picked up the box
and ran to the shanty and urged the accused to
come and see for himself what he had found.
The men, who were at the house, were curious
and suspicious at first, and all refused to have
anything further to say, but finally they de-
cided to go out and see what was up. They
even began to delve into the mass of sticks
themselves. And every time they turned the
pile they found more of the missing treasures.
They looked at each other in astonishment and
more or less shamefacedly, and then finally
ridiculously, as they realized the amazing
ludicrousness of the situation. Could it be that

28 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

this strange and curious-looking rat that ran
from the stack of sticks was the culprit and the
maker of all this mischief?

There was yet another mystery that now
seemed on the way to being solved. The men
had noticed time after time that there were
small piles of rubbish, bits of manure, and
small sticks here and there in the house, and
they had wondered how this useless stuff came
there. They would clean it out, but always
after a few days there was more of it. They had
heard strange noises at night of animals of some
kind running around on the sills and on the
floor, but they had repeatedly smelled skunks,
and they accounted for the noise by the pres-
ence of these animals. But now they made the
sweeping generalization that if this rat could be
the one to accuse of stealing all their trinkets,
he might also be the one who was piling up all
this rubbish in the corners, on shelves and in
the woodbox.

And in this inference they were not wrong,
for pack rats are given to this very habit. Any
object that is small enough to carry off and
which strikes their fancy they pick up and pack

THE NEOTOMAS, OR PACK RATS 29

around until they run across some other article
that appeals more to them. The first object is
then dropped and the second carried until they
reach the nest, or until some silly curiosity
prompts them to drop this one and pick up a
third. On account of this inclination to pack
off things and gather and accumulate them in
all sorts of odd places in dwellings and about
their nests, there has grown up the belief that
they are actually given to bartering, never
taking one object without leaving another as
“‘pay.”’ This, however, is not a fact and cannot
be verified by experience.

The animals which go under the name of
‘pack rats” or “‘ trade rats’’ belong to the genus
of rodents known as “‘neotomas.’”’ -They are
not true rats, and are very unlike the common
introduced house rats, both in appearance and
in their habits, having none of the repulsive
aspects and possessing much more interesting
manners. They will not live in habitations
infested by the common European house rats.
They rank among our most intelligent smaller
mammals 'and make most engaging pets. They
are gentle, affectionate, and easy to keep.

30 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

The appearance of the neotomas is always
such as to arouse our interest. With their big,
batlike ears, their super-prominent, big, black
eyes, their gentle, rabbit-like faces and sleek
coats, they impress themselves upon us as
being really beautiful creatures.

The neotomas are confined to the North
American continent and are most plentiful in
the Southern and Western United States. Dr.
Mearns found as ‘many as thirteen species and
subspecies along the Mexican boundary alone.
With the rattlesnake, the road-runner, and the
burro, they find a chief and constant place in
the narrative conversation engaged in around
miner’s camp-fires, and it is surprising that
such alert, mischievous, and interesting crea-
tures should have found so little place in
Western literature.

According to their environment they differ
in their methods of building their nests. Those
living in the deserts and scantily treed regions
generally select sites beneath rocks or in the
vicinity of cactuses or other thorny vegetation
where they find some natural protection from
the ravages of their natural enemies, the coy-

THE NEOTOMAS, OR PACK RATS 31

otes, skunks, rattlesnakes, and badgers. All
sorts of ingenious uses of cactus joints and
small rocks and sticks are made in forming
their nests, and the pack rats’ domiciles are
always homes full of interest to the inquisitive
and observant traveler.

The mountain species and those living in
brushy and forested areas are given to making
huge stick houses either under or high up among
the trees. Sometimes the stacks are four or five
feet high and are scattered so thickly in the
brush of certain localities in the hill country
that they number between twenty and thirty
to the acre. These nests represent an enormous
amount of labor on the part of the rats. Thou-
sands of sticks, stones, old bones, and other
oddities such as empty cartridges and the like,
enter into their composition. Sometimes they
are composed largely of manure, or, as Dr.
Mearns found along the Colorado River, of
sticks and coyote melons or gourds. It has
always been a marvel to me to know how some
of the enormous sticks, bones, and fairly good-
sized stones are carried. Recently I found a
nest in Superior Valley on the Mohave Desert

32 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

with hundreds of stones in it the size of pullet’s
eggs. It seems quite evident that they could
not have been carried in the small mouth, and
how could the neotoma carry them in her paws!

A mystery equally hard to solve is found
among the desert species that surround their
nests with the joints of the Bigelow’s cholla
cactus. This species of shrublike cactus, or
Opuntia, has needles so close-set, so impene-
trable, and so formidable that it seems no
creature could carry the joints in any way,
much less let go of them once it had them in
its grasp. With the least touch they penetrate
the toughest-hided animals and hang on with a
tenacity that is most pronounced. Only those
who have ever tried to pick up or even touch
one of the joints of the Bigelow’s cholla know
how terrible and how painful the prick of the
needles is. Not without good reason the Indi-
ans declare that the joints of this cactus jump
at you as you come near. The wood rat is the
only creature I know of that does not fear to
handle them. When we remember that these
joints are larger or almost equal in size to her
own tender body and that they are given to

TRADE RAT’S HOME IN A ROCK-CREVICE
THE ENTRANCE WELL GUARDED WITH JOINTS OF BIGELOW’'S CHOLLA

THE NEOTOMAS, OR PACK RATS 33

rolling, it is the more unapparent how she
keeps herself from being pierced through and
through with dozens of needles, especially about
the mouth, breast, and feet. I have seen the
cholla joints piled up in stacks or lodged
about the entrance of the burrow in such num-
bers that their total bulk would have filled
several barrels. In another instance I noticed
cactus joints piled two and three deep over an
area of at least forty square feet in front of the
burrow. The nest was situated high up on a
bank and back under a ledge of rock in such a
position that every one of those horrible as-
semblages of cactus needles had to be carried
at least forty feet over steep and uneven rock
surfaces, the nearest shrub of cholla being that
distance from the nest.

This nest was entered by either of two open-
ings. In order that I may explain the ingenious
method that the neotoma used to protect these
runways from being entered by an enemy, I
have drawn the accompanying map of the
space in front of the dwelling. An examination
of the figure will show that every approach to
the holes is most carefully protected by the

34 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

spiny cholla joints, barricades more effectual
than barbed-wire entanglements in warding off
an enemy. Moreover, between all the runways

GROUND PLAN OF THE TRADE RAT'S NEST

is a mat of the awful cholla material, and, as
Hornaday well observes, not the most foolish
coyote or skunk is so rash as to jump into that
spiny mass or run over the pavement of horrible
cholla joints for any rat. So no matter how
hard-pressed by the foe, when once the neo-
toma has reached her fortress she is as safe as
if she were a dozen miles beneath the surface
of the earth.

You may call this unique utilization of spiny
cactus a matter of instinct if you wish, but it
seems to me to be a downright work of animal

THE NEOTOMAS, OR PACK RATS 35

intelligence of a high order, and every time I
see this home I have greater respect for the
little creature that makes it.

Pack rats are largely nocturnal creatures,
though occasionally they come out in the day-
time to feed. They eat a variety of foods, but
the chief fare is the seeds of grasses and com-
posites, and, in the spring, green vegetation.
They are not good gnawers in the sense the
common rats are, and they seldom molest food
or clothing protected in closed boxes or chests.
It is the mice that do the mischief there.

The nests of the desert species, which are
made under rocks, generally consist only of a
network of burrows with several well-protected
openings. Those of the mountains, which are
of sticks, contain several small compartments,
each with a distinctive use. Thus one nest I in-
vestigated consisted of several long hallways,
or tunnels, a granary wherein were stored seeds
and green willow stems, a bedroom, and a
special compartment used as a storeroom for
excreta, for the wild rats are very cleanly
creatures. There were no odors of any kind
anywhere about the nest. These stick houses

36 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

are almost waterproof and a Jong season of
rains is necessary before they become damp
inside. Prospectors and cattlemen often go to
these nests to get dry fuel during wet weather.

The Indians are very fond of these animals
for food, and if they do not use them now as
formerly it is because they are ashamed to eat
them, knowing the prejudice of the whites
toward rats as food. The animals are captured
by setting fire to the mounds of sticks. Even
when the nests are fired, the wood rats are asa
rule reluctant to leave them and many perish
in the flame. One would think that the smoke
alone would drive them out.

The Hopi Indians, who call a species common
in their region ‘‘kee-hua’ cahl’-a,” account the
flesh as one of the greatest delicacies. Physi-
cians of northern Mexico ‘commonly order
broth made from the wood rat for the Indians
and peasants whom they are called upon to
treat just as our physicians prescribe chicken
broth and beef tea.’”” Dr. Mearns tells us that
he found many charred bones of this rat in
the ancient cave dwellings in the Verde Val-
ley, showing that the neotomas were prob-

THE NEOTOMAS,.OR PACK RATS 37

ably often used for food by the inhabitants.

The wood rats are preyed upon by coyotes,
skunks, kit foxes, and the great horned and
rabbit-eared owls by night, and during the
day they must fear the attacks of hawks and
rattlesnakes. Recently while riding through a
rocky gulch I ran onto a wood rat upon whom
I showered much pity. She seemed perplexed
in her slow movements and was trembling from
head to tail-tip. I could not wonder; for there
in front of her was an enormous coiled rattle-
snake casting a spell over the frightened crea-
ture before striking. I gave a violent whoop
and threw up my hands and frightened the
neotoma off into the brush, but before I could
dismount and secure a stone to kill the snake,
he had crawled into the brush beyond my
reach, following, no doubt, his intended victim.

BILLY BOB-TAIL, THE HERMIT
WOOD RAT

BILLY BOB-TAIL, THE HERMIT
WOOD RAT

(Neotoma intermedia desertorum)

I

THE wind, that had spent the whole of its
energies since sun-up blowing the sand in great
sweeps across the oasis desert village, only
seemed to redouble its efforts as the sun sank
in redness below the western rim of the San
Jacintos. It was no night for even the hardened
prospector to lie out in his blankets, and I
sought the shelter of my little shanty, hoping
that, though I must literally chew sand all
night (for it sifted into the house through every
crack), I should at least be able to keep covers
over me. .

But soon after midnight the wind, that had
seemed to know no stopping, dropped, and. a
stillness, that made itself conspicuous through
mere contrast with the wind-furious sound of
the early evening, now came on. As I lay there
in the quiet, breathing once more the clear,
good air, there came a break in the silence.

42 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

It was the gnawing of rodent teeth I heard;
then strange sounds of rapping, rapping, rap-
ping, almost as regular as the beats of a slow-
moving pendulum; then again the gnawing;
then more of the mysterious, ghostlike rapping.
I pounded the floor, threw a shoe into the
corner from which the sound seemingly pro-
ceeded, and it stopped, but shortly began again.
Three hours this knocking was continued. The
noise, which at first only aroused my curiosity,
now became nerve racking, impossible to bear.
If I could only have known its source and how
it was made, the knowledge would have taken
off the apprehension accompanying mystery.

A few days later I heard the rapping again
behind the closet curtain, and in another in-
stant there stood in full view of me the deni-
zen of the world of mysterious rappings —a
gentle-faced neotoma, or hermit wood rat, with
great lustrous, super-prominent, jet-black eyes,
set like enormous crystal hemispheres of black
on the all-knowing, all-wise-looking face. His
beautiful batlike ears were as large as quarter
dollars, rounded and well set up, indicative of
his alert and sprightly manner. His body was

THE HERMIT WOOD RAT 43

covered with a silky pelage as soft as moleskin,
brownish buff on the back, clearer buff on the
sides, and with white underparts. His feet, too,
were white, and the tail (what was left of it)
bicolored, dusky above and whitish below —
not ratlike, but covered with soft, short hairs.
The mutilated tail was really the only detrac-
tion from his good looks.

Like the three blind mice celebrated in the
rondo he had had his tail cut off, probably in
some scrappy feud with another of his kind, so
that only a stubby, funny-looking stump was
left. And so I called him my Billy Bob-Tail.

With a queer teetering gait Billy now made
his way to the fireplace, took up an orange peel
which had been thrown there with other scraps
at breakfast-time and proceeded to nibble it,
holding it the while up to his mouth with
his little short forepaws. Shortly he took up
another peel, but this time made off with it,
carrying it into the closet and down through a
knot-hole under the house. In a minute he was
back again and got another, and another, work-
ing in all fully a half-hour at his self-appointed
task. I now began to realize where all my table

44 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

scraps had been going, but it took me two whole
years of watching to know how Billy made the
queer rapping sounds.

This was the beginning of a series of visits
which became more frequent until now my mis-
chievous Billy comes around both day and
night to carry off peels or to inspect the con-
tents of my woodbox with his long-whiskered,
ever-moving, inquisitive nose. No sleepy head
is he; his bump of curiosity, his industrious,
provident impulses, are too strongly developed
to allow much dozing in slumber.

At one end of my poorly floored shanty is a
knot-hole in the floor, to which Billy Bob-Tail
has laid claim as his door to the mysterious,
dark storehouse of his beneath the house. He
spent several days and nights rounding it out so
as to let himself pass through with ease; and
there was little leaving of his job until it was
done. His industry was marvelous. He stayed
by his task hours at a time — mostly at night.
His workmanlike industry, habitual diligence,
and steady attention to the business in hand
would have been a shame to many a man J
know.

THE HERMIT WOOD RAT 45

The job complete, Billy now set himself to
the task of carrying everything edible in sight
down that knot-hole. Of oranges and lemons
I use a plenty, and there were always many
rinds to engage Billy’s attention. The total
bulk of peelings which disappeared down that
knot-hole must number bushels. I have watched
him work for two hours at a time, toiling with-
out any rest, except occasionally, when he
stopped to nibble at an orange peel — lunch-
hour during work-time.

Now it was in connection with this carting
away of fruit peels down that knot-hole that I
learned to know that a wood rat thinks, im-
agines, plans, and invents just like human
beings. The guidance of instinct can never
account for Billy’s actions when he had engi-
neering problems to solve or had questions of
mechanics proposed to him.

There were a good many grapefruit peels
(Billy liked the bitter things) which were so very
large that they would not go easily through the
hole. Sometimes, when the clever wood rat
could not get them down by pushing, he would
sit on his haunches, take the peel in his paws,

46 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

and nibble around the edges until it was small
enough. Or, again, I have seen him clip one
right in two and then take each half down sepa-
rately in the ordinary way by carrying them
in his mouth. But he had one trick of get-
ting parings down the hole that required in its
execution nothing less than the nicest cunning
and real acts of judgment and invention — in
other words, mental processes of an order ac-
credited to human beings.

One early, rainy morning I was lying on my
cot with my face turned to one side watching
my industrious pet, when I saw him bring up to
the hole an extra large orange peel. This he
tried to put through. It would ot go down, in
spite of his repeated attempts. Billy stopped
and pondered. A sudden thought came to him.
He dropped his peel beside the hole, went down
the hole himself, pushed his head up through it,
seized the orange peel, and pulled it through.
That was invention, the product of reason,
imagination, and judgment — and Billy a wood
rat too.

I have seen him do more. I have watched him
carry a number of edibles of large size — bread

THE HERMIT WOOD RAT 47

crusts and the like — up to the hole, leave his
collection, run out of the door at the other end
of the house where he had an entrance beneath
it, go under and put his head up through the
ever-handy knot-hole, and then pull the whole
supply of crusts and what-nots beneath. Why
he made the roundabout trips to get beneath
the open hole I do not know. Probably in our
exact way of thinking it was a waste of energy,
not efficient. But there is one thing that im-
presses me more. Billy showed that he could
carry a thought and hold his attention uninter-
ruptedly to the task in hand.

More surprising still to me was the help
Billy took from my hand when he was put to
hard straits to get an extra large orange peel
through the knot-hole. Many, many times have
I pushed while he pulled. Here was the accept-
ance of codperation, a trait befitting human
beings again.

Not always did this wood rat work so pur-
posefully. Sometimes his work showed more
industry than judgment. There were, it seemed
to me, times of ‘‘much ado about nothing,”
—for instance, when he carried all the little

48 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

greasewood sticks out of the fireplace and
stacked them up one night in a corner, or when
he carried a lot of black, charcoaly ashes off
behind the cupboard. I can’t see much intelli-
gence there — just the instinct to accumulate
keeping him busy.

It is surprising what this instinct to pack off
things will induce wood rats to do. I have had
them carry off a whole boxful of trinkets, drag
my spoons off under rocks, bring into the house
quantities of sticks, seeds, and manure, and
litter up the house with quantities of paper
scraps. A lot of the storing of orange peels was
useless endeavor; for Billy has carried away
during these two years more orange peels than
he and his family could eat in four. Store,
store, store; that is the ever-compelling, ever-
active, ever-prompting thought of ‘his little
busy mind, and the industriously inclined body
never tires doing the brain’s bidding. These
things, to which his provident nature directs
his activities, are sometimes carried great dis-
tances to be stored. An informant tells me that
during one summer when she was absent from
her desert home, some pack rats carried the

THE HERMIT WOOD RAT 49

entire contents of a box of lump starch — some
thirty pounds — from the upstairs to the base-
ment; that others carried grain from the barn
over a hundred yards away and deposited it in
her writing-desk.

II
SPRINGTIME on the deserts comes with a rush.
Seeds sprout; plants grow, blossom, and fruit
in a surprisingly short time. The animals,
which have been more or less inactive because
of lack of food, cold nights and days during
winter, now wake to the new activities of
harvesting food and raising the young. Since
the season is a short one, they must work with
intensity and enterprise.

This is the time when the mice, wood rats,
and antelope chipmunks are likely to plunder
your bed for wool and feathers to line their
nests. I have learned from experience that any
precautions you can now take to secure the bed-
clothes from their attacks are none too good;
for these small rodents now get into everything
left open to their ravages. Billy Bob-Tail
played ‘‘old gooseberry” with my mattress;

50 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

and this while I lay in bed. A half-dozen times
I was awakened in the night by his tugging at
the cotton padding. By pounding on the floor
each time I frightened him off, but the fluffy -
stuff inside the mattress was so incomparably -«
wonderful as bedding for baby pack rats that
he just could n’t keep away. Never mind, old
Billy; two pounds of cotton you owe me and
the price of a new mattress, maybe. After this
I’ll hang my bedding on the clothes line by day,
and see that the cot is perched at night high on
the rocks far beyond your travels.

My hermit wood rat’s mate seldom showed
herself, and when she did come around, she was
exceedingly shy and retiring. From the nature
and extent of Billy’s activities I must presume
that among these humble rodent folk the males
supply most of the material for the nest, and
that they take some real interest in the rearing
of the young, the number of which is generally
three to five.

The home was made under a large rock near
the corner of my dwelling where I could care-
fully watch the activities about the nest. Dur-
ing the early life of the baby neotomas the

THE HERMIT WOOD RAT 51

mother stayed closely at home. The little
creatures kept themselves attached to the
nipples of the mother, and, when disturbed,
they still maintained their hold and allowed her
to drag them about as she ran — always a
funny and interesting sight. Mr. A. H. Alver-
son of San Bernardino, California, quoted by
Stephens in his “Mammals of California,”
speaking of a family of neotomas he had in cap-
tivity, says he noticed that sometimes, when
the mother desired to move and free herself
from her babies, ‘“‘she would turn round and
round and seem to twist them loose in a pile
where they would lie quietly until they felt her
return; then they would at once attach to the
teats.” Speaking further of the young after
three weeks, he says: ‘‘They were very playful,
running about most of the time, but when too
venturesome the mother takes them in her
mouth and lifts them bodily back to the nest
in the corner. Sometimes she lifts them by the
neck, but mostly by the middle of the side.
After playing and eating, the mother and young
make their toilet, the mother doing most of it
for them, but the young try to learn; then the
young attach to the mamme and all sleep.”

52 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

While my pet neotomas were busy at home-
making, a third came about the premises, this
one a sleek, youthful-looking fellow, but not
so tame as my Billy. Animals like human be-
ings are possessed of individuality, and I was
anxious to watch the new tenant of my quarters
to see what new contributions he would make
to my knowledge of wood rats. One morning
while I was seated at my table writing I heard a
slight noise, and, looking down, saw my new
neotoma approaching a crust of bread I had
placed under the table for him. What struck
me now to do it I do not know, but intuitively
I quickly shuffled my feet and sent the wood
rat flying with fright across the room. He went
down Billy’s knot-hole, but soon came out again
determined to get the bread. Having plucked
up courage he carefully approached the table
again. But again I shuffled my feet and he as
quickly retreated, went halfway down the hole,
and turned back. He now sat still and peered
at me from out his big, lustrous eyes, wiggled
his whiskers impatiently, and gave a saucy
stamp with his hind feet. I could hardly believe
my ears. It was the same noise Billy had made

THE HERMIT WOOD RAT 53

that night of the wind-storm. I shuffled my feet
again, and again the neotoma raised the soles
of his long-pawed feet and brought them down
on the floor with a determined rap.

Oh, what was now my delight! For two
whole years I had been guessing, observing,
inquiring, and writing letters to scientific in-
stitutions and naturalists trying to find out
how wood rats did their pounding, and no
one seemed to be able to tell me. Now I knew
through my own observations. It was the de-
light accompanying discovery. My new guest
had solved the riddle.

This stamping or pounding seems to be an
expression of strong emotional states of mind
indulged in when angry, impatient, or defiant.
Rabbits pound in similar manner under like
emotional states. The wood rats and the rab-
bits strike with the soles of both feet at the
same time. Skunks and squirrels, however, who
also pound, strike with their forepaws singly.

THE SPINY POCKET MICE

THE SPINY POCKET MICE
(Perognathus spinatus Merriam)

Soon after finishing my desert shanty I built
an out-of-door cookstove. With cement and
small stones I constructed a fire-box and then
closed over the top with sheet steel. On the
evening when I cooked my first meal upon it
the pocket mice were there at the first smell of
gravy. They climbed up on the stone border,
which was slightly warm, and sat there on their
haunches sniffing the odors. So long as I kept
perfectly quiet they manifested not the least
bit of fear. Evidently they pronounced the
supper odors good, for no sooner had I emptied
the contents of my skillet than they leaped
into the half-warm vessel and made way with
the leavings.

These little creatures were so graceful, so
clever, so elegant and cleanly, that I never
minded having them clean out my vessels. My
generous-hearted skunk came only too often
to help them at their task. Then, of course,

58 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

their labors ended quickly; for these mice knew
how skillful are the nimble paws of skunks in
catching them, and they hied themselves away
into the rock crannies on her first approach.

After this the mice were about in numbers
every evening at the approach of darkness.
I counted twenty-two about my out-of-doors
table at one time. They were everywhere, under
the table, on the table, and every other avail-
able place. While I sat still watching them they
ran up my trouser legs inside and out; they
nibbled butter from my knife, and only too
often ran across my plate.

They were among the most industrious little
creatures I ever saw, rivaling the ants and run-
ning them a close second in competition for
Solomon’s word of commendation. These busy
little rodents every night covered every inch of
ground about my house in their search for food.
Not a crumb was missed, and the thousands of
tiny close-set footmarks left in the dust by
morning showed the thoroughness with which
they searched.

After the evening meal there was always an
abundance of crumbs for them and they stuffed

THE SPINY POCKET MICE 59

their little cheek pouches almost to bursting, so
that these pockets looked like furry balls set on
beside the jaws. It was always amusing to see
how rapidly the mice worked their little weak
forepaws when cramming the cheek pouches
full. As soon as a load was secured, they hur-
ried off quickly to the crevices in the rock piles,
where they emptied their pouches, and hurried
back for more. These mice were especially
fond of making off with the burro’s barley, and
the supply often suffered severely from the
work of their industrious hands. A half-dozen
pocket mice working all night will carry off
several quarts of grain.

On several occasions, while I was absent from
my house for a number of nights at a time, they
took to storing barley and seeds of various
kinds between the blankets and under the pil-
lows of my bed. When upon returning [ laid
the covers back, I found their little seed piles,
each consisting of about a pint of grain. Sev-
eral successive nights afterward I was awakened
by feeling the soft furry creatures crawling
under my blankets as they came in with more
supplies of grain. Evidently they had not taken

60 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

notice of the giant that was now reposing in
their storehouse.

Many a merry tune they played at night as
they scurried over the tin lids and kettles in
the pantry out-of-doors. Sometimes they would
make such a racket that I would expect to
see everything turned topsy-turvy by morning.
But always when I went to count the damage
against them I found nothing disturbed at all,
a thing which was always a puzzle to me.

For some reason or other the spiny pocket
mice much preferred most of the time to stay
outside the house, although it had so many
cracks through which they could enter and
leave. On the whole they seemed to like to stay
close to the rock piles out of doors, leaving the
indoor crumbs to be picked up by the wood rats
and the white-footed mice that seemed to want
to come in on every occasion.

It is a clever and swift-flighted owl that
catches the spiny pocket mice. I don’t think he
gets many. A pocket mouse can shoot out of
sight and under cover in less time than any
wild creature I know of. They leap three and
four feet at a single jump, and so quickly that

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SLINAGOU TIVWS YOA LNAWNOUIANG TVadI N

THE SPINY POCKET MICE 61

the eye can hardly follow them. They are never
about in the daytime, but wait until twilight
before venturing forth for food. Thus they
avoid many enemies which stalk about during
the daytime. But they find in a night-roving
species of rattlesnake, the sidewinder, an enemy
not to be ignored. This little rattlesnake is so
quick in its movements when striking that even
the nimble, swift jumping pocket mice seldom
escape capture.

The pocket !mice are always on the alert and
ready for flight when occasion demands. They
notice everything. Let me make a sudden
movement with my foot, or wiggle even a finger
ever so little, and they are off in an instant. It
is a singular fact, however, that, though their
ear conchs are so well developed for catching
sounds, these rodents pay little, if any, atten-
tion to noises. As long as they see no motion,
they pay no heed to sounds. I have imitated
owls at their hooting, carried on conversation
with visitors, shouted and whined in sharp
tones, and they paid no more attention than if
they were stone deaf.

One of the peculiarities of these pocket mice

62 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

— and the same may be said of the pocket rats
and a number of other small mammals of the
desert regions—is their ability to live on
almost indefinitely without drinking water or
eating moist food of any kind. They are thus
unusually well adapted to live in arid places.
This ability to subsist without water is the
more amazing to us when we consider the
large amounts necessary to sustain other higher
animal life in the same region. Lieutenant Gail-
lard, of the Mexican Boundary Survey, gives
the average amount of water consumed on
the desert during the summer by each man
of the Survey to be about seven quarts a day
and twenty gallons for the pack animals. The
desert animals subsisting without water must
elaborate all the moisture for their bodies from
the food they eat, much of which, especially
in summer, is of an extremely dry character,
mostly dry seeds. Most of the species of pocket
mice are found in the arid Southwest, and none
occur east of the Mississippi River. They are
very sensitive to cold and moisture and thrive
best where the rainfall is least.

The spiny pocket mice are so called because

THE SPINY POCKET MICE 63

of the many spiny, somewhat porcupine-like
hairs which cover their backs, particularly on
the rump and sides. The ears are small com-
pared with the wood rat’s, but similarly well
set up. Each has at its entrance five tiny stiff
black hairs which are doubtless protective in
function. The eyes are quite small. The end
of the little nose, which is bare of hair, is ever
in motion; the shovel-like tip is used as a feeler.
The body is little longer than half the length of
one’s thumb, and when these little fellows are
curled up in sleep they are scarcely bigger than a
good-sized marble or a walnut. The tail, which
is longer than the entire body, is covered with
many fine, soft hairs and has at its end a small
brush or pencil of hairs, the sight of which
would doubtless have delighted the youthful
Benjamin West, who as a little boy, you will
remember, plucked hair from the cat’s tail to
make for himself a paintbrush. The pocket
mouse’s tail would have served the young artist
quite as well. The tail is kept well off the
ground most of the time, but occasionally you
will see marks in the dust showing where it has
dragged. When the mice jump, the tail is sud-

64 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

denly thrown forward, but as quickly:thrown
backward when landing.
They are easily trapped, and recently I
caught a little fellow in a box trap and for a few
days kept him a captive in order that I might
more closely observe some of his habits. As
soon as he found himself in the cage, he made a
careful inspection of it to find an exit. But dis-
covering none, he sat down on his haunches,
grabbed his whiskers in his forepaws, and
stroked them like an old man in deep thought,
and I could imagine him saying to himself:
““Now-let-me-see. What am I to do next?”
At another time I found him with his tail
brought forward beneath his haunches on
which he was sitting. All of a sudden he
grasped its end with his forepaws and with a
very funny motion began running his hands
over it, the movement much resembling the
reverse of that made by a man when climbing
a rope; this over, he cleaned his whiskers and
ran off into the corner.

Mice are a humble folk, but a diligent, assidu-
ous people. I have never seen creatures that
could work more unremittingly when once

THE SPINY POCKET MICE 65

they begin, whether it be at nest-making, food-
getting, or seeking egress from a cage in which
they find themselves imprisoned. Though noc-
turnal by nature, they are ever ready to work
by day if occasion demands it. How slow,
cumbersome, and laborious are the movements
of man, how sluggish his disposition, compared
with that of these alert, ever-restless, ever-agile,
and graceful creatures whom he so often
despises!

THE CACTUS WREN

THE CACTUS WREN
(Heleodytes brunneicapillus)

THE neotomas are not alone in their use of
cactuses as a means of protection; insects,
mice, turtle doves, ladder-backed woodpeckers,
Palmer and Le Conte thrashers, and several
other birds find in the beneficent spiny masses
or under the roots a hiding haven or a place to
rear their young. How it happens that they
can dodge the spears and daggers in which all
their foes are likely to be caught, I cannot say,
for never were skins or bodies more tender than
theirs. Does each have a guiding spirit or have
they all been dipped in the river Styx?

Among the most clever of these cactus spine-
dodgers is the desert cactus wren, which can
perch upon the branches or dive into a tree of
the awful Bigelow’s cholla with perfect im-
punity. In fact, the cactus wren finds the com-
pany of cactuses so congenial that she not only
spends a great deal of her time foraging for
insects among their branches, but chooses to

70 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

rear her family in a nest embraced and fortified
by their needles. I doubt if there is a member
of the wren family that better provides for the
protection of her home.

Those who are used to associating the word
““wren”’ with the tiny, sprightly, and vivacious
bird of the Eastern States, with its happy,
jocund, and joyous song, will find it hard to see
how the cactus wren can be called a wren at all,
for he is such a different fellow from the bird of
their acquaintance. On the whole he is rather a
coarse-looking bird with no prepossessing char-
acters as to either form or color. Comparatively,
he is rather a good-sized bird, having a length
of eight inches from bill to tail-tip. The general
color-tone is brownish gray with whitish under-
parts prominently speckled with round and
linear black spots, especially on the throat and
fore part of the breast. The bill, like that of
the rock wrens, is slightly bent. The song is an
odd one and hardly musical, consisting gen-
erally of only a coarse prolonged clatter or low
“chut-chut-chut.” It is especially noticeable in
the spring during the nesting season. The males
are then unusually quarrelsome, hot-tempered,

THE CACTUS WREN 71

irascible fellows, pursuing one another in flight
over long distances, scolding and giving vent
to their peppery tempers and jealousies in
shrill, angry, jaylike notes of warning.

These giant wrens are with us all the year,
but are seldom heard except during the breed-
ing season. They seem to be less plentiful in
winter; food being then scarce they scatter
out more. The male and the female stay
matched throughout the year and are generally
found foraging together. In California they are
common in all the desert country as far north
as the upper end of Owen’s Valley, and on the
coast they are found from San Diego to Ven-
tura County. The cactus wrens are also com-
mon residents of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona,
Nevada, and southern Utah.

The nest presents a very interesting piece of
bird architecture. Shaped like a large, long,
globular purse, it is laid horizontally (the angle
is really slightly less than 45°) between the
forks and branches of a cactus, and from it
there runs outward a singular covered passage
or tunnel, varying from four to twelve inches in
length. It is composed of fine grasses and

72 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

coarser sticks and is lined with feathers, the
whole often topped off with a loose stack of
branchlets from certain species of buckwheats
growing in the region. I find that the cactus
wrens are pretty good botanists and are able to
select with remarkable exactness certain species
of plants which they desire. In the examination
of a great number of nests the past spring in
the Colorado Desert of California, I found the
lower portion of all the nests consisting of
certain plants only, the kind seldom varying
from nest to nest, and the top stack in every
case made from one certain species of reddish-
stemmed buckwheat (Eriogonum), and this,
though there are growing abundantly in the
region several species which might be easily
confused. But the cactus wren, bird botanist,
never makes a mistake.

There is no need to advertise for information
to find out where the cactus wrens have built
their nests; for go anywhere you will, you will
come upon them among the patches of shrubby
cactuses and thorny palo verde trees. And you
will find nests in abundance and not judge that
the cactus wren population is waning. In a

FLASK-SHAPED NESTS OF CACTUS WREN IN OPUNTIA
CACTUS

THE CACTUS WREN 73

walk of about a mile over a cactus-strewn,
rocky detritus fan emerging from one of the
desert cafions, I once counted thirty nests.

Last spring a nest was made within twenty
feet of my door and I had a chance to watch
closely the rearing of the young. Incubation
began after four salmon-dotted, white eggs had
been laid in the nest. When once hatched the
baby birds, like all youngsters, grew amazingly
fast and their appetites kept the mother con-
stantly afield in search of insects. It seemed
only a few days from the time I first saw the
tiny, upstretched, gaping mouths until the
nest was overflowing with squirming almost
full-grown birds. The passageway or vestibule
to this nest was very short — not over four
inches long — and it was always a wonder to me
that none of the restless birdlings became im-
paled on the frightful cactus needles bristling
like bayonets about the edge of the nest. After
making inquiry for a number of years, I can
find only one instance where young were seen
spitted on the thorns outside.

The wrens are peculiar among birds in that
among many species there is the habit of build-

74 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

ing during the spring or the autumn the so-
called ‘‘spare nests” or ‘‘roosting-nests”’ which
are used during the greater part of the year for
sleeping-quarters by the adult birds. Unlike
the nests made for rearing the young, these
nests are ordinarily small, compact, scantily
lined, and built with much less care. In some
cases, however, the old brooding-nests are used
after being relined and generally reconstructed.
During the past autumn I noticed that a cock
wren was roosting in a spare nest built in a palo
verde tree below my house. During the winter
months he quite regularly went to roost at
about 4.30 o’clock. On one particular evening
in January an incident took place at the nest
which was so ludicrous that it needs to be given
record.

The wren had nicely settled himself in the
nest for the night when a curious, impudent,
meddlesome shrike, or butcher bird, flew into
the tree, and, bent on plunder, poked his beak
into the private residence of the wren. Not
pleased with such intrusions, the waspish-
tempered wren flew into a rage, and before the
shrike was able to realize his precarious situa-

THE CACTUS WREN 75

tion he was seized by the foot with a bill-grip
as strong as a vise. The captive bird screamed
and shrieked, fluttered and pulled, trying to
extricate himself from the grip of the wren, who
seemed determined never to let go. ‘You will
poke your head into places you have no busi-
ness to, will you?”’ I could fancy the wren say-
ing. “I will give you a lesson that will last you
awhile.”

The shrike did finally get away, no doubt
glad to have escaped without a toe missing.
I feel certain that his pugnacious and curious
nature did not lead him to visit those quarters
again soon.

The nest of the cactus wren seems unusually
well protected from the ravages of enemies
common to birds, yet do not think for a mo-
ment that these birds are wholly immune from
attack. Snakes, those constant terrors of the
bird world, even risk climbing up through the
ramified and prickly branches of the cholla to
get the eggs and young. Since several species of
smaller rodents, such as wild mice, wood rats,
and antelope chipmunks are also able to climb
with comparative ease into the cactuses, it is

76 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

really a question whether or not the situation of
the nest is any real protection to other than
avian enemies.

Not long ago an artist friend of mine, out
with his easel and colors, upon hearing a strange
bird call, had his attention drawn to a cactus
wren which was hovering in peculiar flight
above a large cholla. Interested in the unusual
actions of the bird, he stepped nearer to observe
it, and as he did so he noticed a large red racer
coiled among the branches of the cactus, cruelly
devouring the nestful of birdlings. As he rushed
up to the nest, the snake became frightened
and dropped from the shrub, leaving the last
little, half-dead bird on the edge of the nest,
its mute and bloody remains testifying to the
horrible tragedy that had. taken place in the
once happy bird home.

CATHERPES, THE CANON WREN

CATHERPES, THE CANON WREN
(Catherpes mexicanus conspersus)

OF all our sweet-singing Western birds, it
seems to me without a doubt that the cafion
wren is the most finished and pleasing musician.
All birddom hardly shows a song so full of glad
hurry, so sweet and artistically controlled.
Whether bursting upon the still, herb-scented
air from out a deep-walled cafion, or echoed and
reéchoed from the rocky mountain cliffs, it is a
song that always arouses the whole soul to
rapture. There is first the hurried silvery trill
and then the well-modulated descending scale
of eight to eleven joyous, liquid notes. It is a
song varied at times, but always well worth
learning by heart; for by imitating the birds you
can induce them to sing again and again, and
answer you back from over the cafion depths.
It is in the early morning hours before and
immediately after sunrise that the song is at
its best, most vibrant and clear. As the morn-
ing advances, the songs become more infrequent

80 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

until during midday we seldom hear a sound
from the little throats; but when evening comes
again, the notes of the matin song which
ceased with the warm hours are again taken up
with ardor.

In many ways the cafion wrens and rock
wrens are very much alike. They are birds of
about the same size, they have similar bobbing
motions, and both are rupestrine (rock-dwell-
ing) species, living on similar food. However,
the cafion wren possesses little of the friendly
curiosity that her inquisitive and polite sister
has. Few birds are more shy and retiring than
these little sprites of the cafion solitudes. Try
as you will you can seldom approach sufficiently
near to see them. Just as you think you are
upon them they slip away, and after a few
moments of silence sing you their scale song
from far, faraway. And so it happens that most
of us must be content to know the sweet singers
only by their songs.

However, those who will to know the cafion
wren have much to repay their efforts when
once through persistent seeking they locate,
slip up close to one, and catch a glimpse of this

CATHERPES, THE CANON WREN 81

bird of their desires; for cafion wrens, though
not so attractive in appearance as some of
their highly colored feathered cousins, are really
handsome little birds. The body is a beautiful
reddish or rusty brown color, rather inconspicu-
ously speckled with black and whitish spots
and with an almost white, shield-shaped throat
and breast patch that immediately attracts
attention. The old vernacular name, ‘ white-
throated wren,’’ was not so bad after all; for it
pointed out this very prominent field mark
which is so useful to the novice observer.

Remaining deaf to the ‘‘ seductive summons”
which call so many of the other birds to the
warm tropic lands during winter, the cafion
wrens stay with us throughout the year to sing
their spirit-moving strains. Their range in-
cludes all that territory from the Sierra Nevadas
on the west to the eastern boundaries of the
Rockies, and from Idaho south to Aguas Calien-
tes, Mexico.!

The breeding range of the dotted cafion wren
runs from the cool, rocky gorges close to the

1 They are resident birds only in the southern part of this
region.

CATHERPES, THE CANON WREN 83

Indians in search of insects and crumbs. At
Sacaton, Arizona, Mr. French Gilman found
one building its nest in a slot machine on the
porch of the hotel.

Besides the musical-scale song, Catherpes has
another little song, the idler’s song I like to
call it, which is iterated again and again when
there is little else to do and he is just sitting
still and bobbing. As though to give added
emphasis to what he has to say, he always gives
his head a decided down-jerk as he sings it out,
reminding one of the scolding Johnny owls.
The rock wren’s idler’s song is a tinkling trill,
but the cafion wren’s note given under similar
circumstances is a shorter utterance and lacks
much of the resonance and metallic quality of
the former.

Practically all of the wrens have what we
might characterize as a scolding note, a sort
of harsh gritty “‘skee-eep”’ uttered as a protest
against intruders or as an alarm note. The
cafion wren’s peppery temper often induces him
to utter just such a rasping note, a sound so
much in contrast to the regular vibrant, clear,
ringing scale song that it is a surprise to hear it

84 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

coming from the same gifted throat. But with
the lizards and the nest-plundering jays to
watch and the ever-annoying snakes and
hawks to fear, who could keep from getting
bad-tempered and from scolding and protesting
once in a while? Often it seems that the whole
programme of bird life has resolved itself into a
war between the eaters and the eaten. Seeing
as one does this tragedy of the world of small
creatures, One sometimes wonders how birds
can be as happy as they are or develop any
incentive for song.

Almost the instant after escape from immi-
nent danger, birds in most cases seem to return
to their former state of apparent tranquillity
and joy. Only thus could they endure to live
in their world of constant danger. Evidently
they carry lightly the load of worry, if they
carry it at all, and the dread of life’s dangers
exists in their minds only at the time of their
being engaged by force of circumstances to
realize them. Did man live in such a world and
retain his present mental tendency to worry,
he would wear himself to a near if not a true
insanity of fear.

BETSY BOUNCE, THE ROCK WREN

88 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

restless bobbing antics she gives me a yet more
funny song which, once heard, can never be
forgotten, and which has been well character-
ized by Florence Merriam Bailey as ‘‘the most
unbirdlike of machine-made tinklings,”’ a shrill,
metallic twitter, ‘‘ Kree — kree — kree — kree.”’
She has such pretty speckles on the breast of
her grayish brown body and such a well-defined
and prominent streak of white over the eye
that you cannot, having seen her movements
and heard her song, ever mistake her for any
other bird. The bill, too, is distinctive, being
exceptionally long (equaling the length of the
head) for so plump and tiny a bird. It is slightly
decurved at the tip and well adapted to pull
the spiders, beetles, and day-hiding moths from
the deep cracks in the rocks.

The rock wren is among our most ‘widely dis-
tributed of Western birds, choosing her home
amidst a variety of environmental conditions
that puts her in a class by herself. This restless
little rock-dweller makes herself as much at
home among the sun-scorched rocks of the
silent desert wildernesses as on the boulder-
strewn hills of the moist coastal slopes; she

BETSY BOUNCE, THE ROCK WREN 89

finds as happy a domicile on the very pinnacles
of our highest mountains as on the fog-drenched
lowlands bordering the ocean — a cosmopolite,
indeed, and everywhere a happy bird. Those
living on the higher mountains go to lower levels
during the winter, but the desert-dwellers make
no vertical migrations during the year, remain-
ing in their arid, sun-bleached home through the
intense heat of summer as well as the pleasant
days of winter.

The rock wren, like the mountain junco, is an
agreeably sociable little bird, coming about
one’s quarters and making herself at home if
given the least encouragement. My little Betsy
Bounce, as I love to call the fidgety little rock
wren that has made herself so familiar about my
home, comes regularly each morning to the
door to pick up the crumbs which I throw down
for her, and when all is quiet she comes inside
the house and, after crumbing the floor, hunts
in every crack and cranny from floor to ceiling
for insects. Not the tiniest crack escapes her
sharp, watchful eye, though sometimes it takes
her fully fifteen minutes of constant search to
finish her task of routing out the spiders. Often

go DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

after completing her search inside she goes over
the outside of the many-cracked shanty as care-
fully as she has gone over the inside. But I am
confident she finds it unprofitable labor; for,
since my house is, in true desert fashion, only
one board thick, she must peer into the same
cracks from the outside that she has already
searched through from the inside.

As soon as I open my door in the morning I
find Betsy seated on the rock just outside,
fidgeting, bowing, and bobbing, and waiting for
me to quiet down so that she can come in to get
her crumbs and insects. If I am too long at
getting my breakfast over, her bobbing motion
takes on a more determined manner and she
fidgets more than ever, showing her impatience,
and vociferously protesting because I have kept
her so long outside. I can almost hear her say:
“Hurry up! Hurry up! I’ve been waiting on
you a whole hour already!”

A long search among the rock ledges during
March and April if you are on the desert, or
later if in the mountains, may bring you to the
nest situated in some deep rock nook or crevice.
If the rock wrens have found it possible they

BETSY BOUNCE, THE ROCK WREN 91

will have hidden it so deeply that it will be
quite out of sight, and it may take considerable
work on your part even to get a peep at it.
But the nest or its situation is the least inter-
esting feature. It is the unique paved entrance
that most engages the attention. During the
building season the birds become connoisseurs
of flat and pretty stones, and these they scatter
together with a few sticks about the dooryard
of the nest. And these stones are not small ones
either. Stones a quarter of an inch thick and
an inch and a half long are the average-sized
ones in the nests I have seen, but even larger
ones are not infrequent. The quantity may be
several handfuls. Sometimes in the vicinity
of the coastal villages the rock wrens gather
shells, pieces of china, and even bits of shining
black coal to use in decorating the nest’s en-
trance. Why such elaborate pains should be
taken to decorate and “fix up”’ the tiny bird
home is difficult to explain on other grounds
than the bird’s esthetic sense — a taste pos-
sessed by many birds and animals. Mr. French
Gilman tells me that one spring, in the vicinity
of the Sacaton Indian Reservation in Arizona,

g2 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

he found many of the newly made nests of the
Abert towhees, Bendire thrashers, and in one
instance the nest of the cactus wren, covered
with the brilliant yellow blossoms of Baeria, or
Sunshine. He was able to find no satisfactory
explanation other than that the birds had been
attracted by the highly colored flowers and had
been induced by their sense of decoration thus
to adorn their homes.

It is always easy to know when the time of
nest-building is near, for the cock wren, who
all the winter long has been rather monoto-
nously keeping to one little ditty, now bursts out
into the full melody of his courting song —a
song insistent, positive, confident, and full of
good cheer, and so different in quality and style
from that which formerly came from his throat
during winter that it is difficult to believe that a
new songster has not appeared with the breezes
of spring. All through the year the sprightly
rock wrens are about the first birds up in the
morning and with the towhees the last to retire
at night, and now that they are especially noisy
in song you are more than ever aware of their
early risings and late retirings. The nesting

BETSY BOUNCE, THE ROCK WREN 93

season begins late in February and lasts through
to May and June, varying, of course, in a bird
of such wide zonal distribution according to the
locality. The desert birds have nested and
reared their young before the mountain birds
have laid the first eggs.

If there are any small birds that show them-
selves more concerned over the approach of an
intruder toward the nest I am not aware of it.
Such bobbings and screechings and restless
flights and fidgety dashes as they engage in,
fill one with both pity and amusement; pity,
because of their deep concern and nervousness;
amusement, because of their funny motions
and calls.

THE ANTELOPE CHIPMUNK

THE ANTELOPE CHIPMUNK
(Ammospermophilus leucurus)

THE antelope chipmunks, or ammos, as they
are sometimes called, are the liveliest, most
active and agile of all the small mammals of
the desert, and they hold an interest to us out
of all proportion to their size. As they dash
across the sands at such lively clips as they
are wont to go, they remind us of tiny rabbits,
immediately attracting our attention with their
little white tails, or flags, which they carry
curled up over their backs. So many points of
resemblance are there both in general appear-
ance and in movements between these little
rodents and the chipmunks of the mountains
that the desert people call them chipmunks,
though they are really very small ground
squirrels.

The desert antelope chipmunks are found in
great numbers both on the Colorado and the
Mohave Deserts, and beyond the borders of
California nearly related species are found

98 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

living in Arizona, Nevada, western Colorado,
Utah, and New Mexico. In general they con-
fine themselves to the rocky hills and the
borders of the desert where the soils are com-
pact and offer favorable conditions for con-
structing their burrows. There are a few places
where they are found well up in the mountains
(4000-7000 feet), but in these localities the
climate is very dry and the plants are desert-
loving species. These spermophiles require a
dryer climate than that existing in the coastal
valleys, and in only a few instances have they
been known to establish themselves on the
Pacific side of the mountains.

The ammos do not localize their burrows or
live in close colonies like many of the ground
squirrels, but scatter their holes out quite uni-
formly over their range. They make their bur-
rows in places affording a protection against
enemies that dig, such as coyotes, weasels, and
badgers, choosing a site generally near some
bush or rock. The holes are distinctive in that
the openings are generally more or less tri-
angular in outline and have very little earth
thrown up at the entrance; it is thus easy to

THE ANTELOPE CHIPMUNK — gg

learn to tell them from the retreats of other
small mammals of the region. The burrows
are neither deep nor extensive. Last spring a
number of desert chipmunks took up their
residence near my house, moving from their
quarters down on the flat up onto the mountain-
side into an abandoned wood rat’s hole, so that
they could be nearer the place where I kept
food out for the birds. Many a dispute they
then had with the desert sparrows, the towhees,
and the rock wrens at the food table. Being
more audacious and pugnacious, the chipmunks
always cleared the way for themselves and sent
the poor birds away to get their share of the
grain when they could.

Among this lot of ammos was one bully, a
very large fellow, who always ruled the food
yard with an iron hand; and he let it be known
that all others who ate there did so at his
sufferance. Upon ‘his arrival the other chip-
munks generally scurried off a little way and
then approached cautiously to test out his good
nature before eating in his presence. They
seemed to understand that he had marked out
his sphere of influence and that he was able to

100 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

defend it against all encroachers. Very often
there was much quarreling going on among
them, and this was always accompanied by a
great deal of noise, the ammos making sounds
much like those made by quarreling mountain
chipmunks.

Altogether there are about a dozen of these
“chipmunks” that feed near my shanty, and
during the day when no one is around to dis-
turb them I generally find most of them nos-
ing around hunting for something to eat. The
number of track-marks that they make on the
soft dirt in a day is amazing. Hardly a square
inch of ground is there which they do not cover.
Not a thing that is edible and open to their
reach is undiscovered. Like most rodents, they
are able to consume a surprising amount of food,
and when they have more than they want they
carry off the rest in their cheek pouches. When
they find a store of food they are indefatigable
workers, and will not leave it until the whole of
it is placed safely away. Several times they got
into the burro’s barley bag, and I found that,
though the cheek pouches of a single chipmunk
hold but slightly more than a heaping teaspoon-

ANTELOPE CHIPMUNK FEEDING

THE ANTELOPE CHIPMUNK 101

ful of food, yet in a day they could carry away
several quarts of grain.

The bill-of-fare varies a good deal with the
change of seasons. During the early spring
when succulent food is plentiful they eat many
green plants. At other times they live on seeds
such as those of the tree yuccas, cactuses, scrub
junipers, and many kinds of grasses. During a
part of the year they add to their dry diet the
fruits of the cactuses. Like a great many of the
smaller rodents they will eat flesh if they can
get it.

In their search for food they become very
brave even in the presence of people, and if
one is quiet they will even enter the house and
really become quite tame. They are always on
the alert, however, and ready to run when the
time comes for them to seek safety in retreat.
Like the mice and wood rats they do not mind
noise much, but the sight of any motion, how-
ever slight, is a signal of danger that sends
them off to their holes in a hurry.

The ammos are quite dexterous in their
use of the forepaws and they generally use
them as hands to hold food up to their mouths.

102 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

Since at such times they are much given to
sitting up on their haunches they assume quite
a human aspect. I was recently much amused
at the use a little chipmunk made of his “hands”
while scratching for fleas on his rump. Not
being able to get at the parts that itched very
easily he grasped the skin with his left forefoot
and stretched it around forward where with his
right forepaw he could reach it. He saw to it
that the skin was stretched tight and then pro-
ceeded to give it a thorough scratching. The
little foot moved bewilderingly fast. Dear little
fellow, even he had his troubles.
_ The antelope chipmunks are easily caught in
box traps, but, unless caught very young, they
make poor pets, being so shy that they stay
closely hidden in the cages provided for them
and seldom show themselves when any person
is around. I have several times tried to tame
them, but I have always soon set the little
creatures free, reproaching myself for ever
having subjected them to the fear which accom-
panied their being placed in a box.
Their progress when running is accomplished
by a series of short, bouncing leaps, the tail

THE ANTELOPE CHIPMUNK 103

meanwhile being carried well over the back.
When an ammo is pursued, he seldom goes
straight to his hole. Generally he runs a little
way and then stops and looks back to see if
you are still coming. If you also hesitate, he
will sit up on his haunches in true ground-
squirrel fashion and with his head to one side
assume a listening attitude. In this position of
alertness he may remain for some moments.
All the time the nose and the little side whisk-
ers are kept in constant motion, and the tail is
vibrated too. If now he is chased into his hole,
the little fellow will stay underground for some
time before venturing forth. His sense of
caution is very great, and he will see to it that
you are well out of sight or a good distance
away before he again comes out into the open.

The antelope chipmunks do not like cold,
cloudy, or rainy weather and they seldom come
out of their burrows at such times unless very
hungry. But the minute the showers are over
they will be out everywhere enjoying'the oppor-
tunity, for exercise and foraging. During the
winter months those living in the colder deserts
and up in the mountains may spend several

104 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

months hibernating, but those on the Colorado
Desert are active all through the year. How-
ever, even there the cold mornings of winter
generally keep them in their burrows until nine
or ten o’clock or until the sun has warmed up
the rocks. They retire correspondingly early
in the afternoon. Only once have I known a
chipmunk to be out after dark. One evening
in January at about 7.30 o’clock I heard plainly
just outside my door the twittering, trill-like
call of an ammo. What could have been the
occasion for his being out at such a time must
be left to conjecture.

Though these rodents can get along for un-
usually long periods without water, they enjoy
a drink as well as almost any animal when they
can get it. On the warm, dry summer days
they frequently come down to the little ditch
below my dwelling and, catlike, lap up the
water. Frequently after they have drank they
squat down on the sand and enjoy the shade
of the mesquites. Generally they take a belly-
down position with their little rear legs flat-
tened out behind them. This, too, is the posi-
tion they assume when during the heat of the

THE ANTELOPE CHIPMUNK _ 105

day they are resting under the cool rock ledges
along the mountain bases.

As one rides over the desert one often hears
the ammos’ high-pitched, quavering call. It is
so shrill and so prolonged that one can hardly
believe that it comes from so tiny an animal.
It may last for several seconds and only dimin-
ish in intensity and volume during the last
phase, sounding then as though the little crea-
ture who makes it was losing his last vestige of
breath. Since the call carries so far and pos-
sesses ventriloquistic qualities, it is exceedingly
untrustworthy as a means of locating the ani-
mal.

THE ROUND-TAILED GROUND
SQUIRREL AND NEAR
RELATIVES.

THE ROUND-TAILED GROUND
SQUIRREL AND NEAR
RELATIVES

(Citellus tereticaudus)

HE went out that morning into a world of
plenty. The spring rains of the few days pre-
vious had sent millions of seeds to sprouting,
and now the deserts were ‘‘coming green” again
with a host of juicy annuals. Dainty wild flow-
ers almost literally sprouted and bloomed in
a day. The round-tailed chipmunk knew his
rich feeding-time had come. Summer, autumn,
and winter dry food had been good enough in
their time, but they did not compare with the
succulent green foods that came with the spring.
He, like the Indian, would eat in the day of
his plenty, and on this particular morning his
provident nature seemed to urge him to special
activity. As he foraged outward from the site
of his hole, he seemed to have lost all sense of
stomach capacity. His stomach seemed an un-
fillable cavern, and he stuffed and stuffed. To

110 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

be sure, he felt a little clumsy as his sides began
to swell, but what of that. Was it not the
day of feasting and abandon? Consequences
could now go to the four winds, at least for once.

Now, there are times when even a wild
creature can eat too much and be too greedy
for his own good. The round-tailed chipmunk
found it out this very day and almost paid for
his feast with his life.

The approach of a coyote who was foolishly
nosing about had sent him on his heels toward
one of the holes of the colony to which he be-
longed. He had purposely remained fairly close
to home; for he was aware of the danger that
accompanied distant excursions. His prowess
as a runner had always been good and he now
trusted his legs to take him to his hole in a
hurry. But, alas, he had taken on too much
“ballast.” His distended stomach made it
almost impossible for him to drag himself away.
However, his sense of extreme danger spurred
him on to unusual activity and he finally
reached his hole. But now, but now, just when he
thought himself about to safety, he found that
though the nose and neck went down the hole

GROUND SQUIRRELS 111

made in the day of his leanness, his fat, over-
filled, pendent belly would not come on in after
him. And the coyote right behind! He wiggled,
he squeezed, he scratched and pawed and gave
a whistling squeal, but that little round ball of a
body could not be made to fit the small hole.
Realizing his plight he now threw himself back-
ward, and rushed to another hole. As luck
would have it, this second hole was better
suited to his need, and down he went, one last
flop of his tail all the coyote saw of this fear-
stricken, round-tailed chipmunk.

The vernacular name, ‘‘round-tailed chip-
munk,” given to this animal on account of
its small size, is a misnomer; the proper name
is round-tailed ground squirrel. So wary are
these animals that people often travel for days
through the desert and never even suspect
their presence. They are exceedingly shy crea-
tures and scurry to their holes at the first ap-
proach of a stranger. Considerable patience
and much sitting still is required if you wish to
observe them. About all the average desert
traveler ever sees of them is occasionally a little
gray or brownish form scuttling down a hole,

112 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

or once in a while an adventuresome individual
in a mesquite tree harvesting blossoms. There
is nothing prepossessing in the appearance of
the round-tailed ground squirrels. The ear
conchs are so narrow as to be mere rims, and
this gives the head a sort of roundish, bald
aspect. The tail is quite bare of hairs and the
pelage is almost always coarse. Nevertheless,
we must account them interesting little crea-
tures because of the unique place they occupy
among the small mammals of the arid regions
of the extreme Southwest.

Of the several species inhabiting the desert
region, the Death Valley ground squirrel has
the distinction of occupying a region wholly
below sea level in the lowest, hottest place on
our continent, a habitat such as no other North
American rodent can boast of. The Yuma
round-tailed ground squirrel dwells in the low-
lying, sandy region in the vicinity of the Colo-
rado River in California, and the Imperial
Valley north to the Salton Sea. The north-
western arm of the Colorado Desert, from the
Salton Sea to the San Gorgonio Pass, is inhab-
ited by the Palm Springs round-tailed ground

GROUND SQUIRRELS 113

squirrel. Each species thus occupies a very
definite area; and neither trespasses on the
ground occupied by the other.

The narrow, troughlike depression now
known as the Colorado Desert of California
was once a portion of the bed of the Gulf of
Lower California. Then as now the Colorado
River, brown with its heavy sediments of silt,
was emptying its waters into the Gulf and
pushing its delta across the narrow sea valley.
In time the sediments were deposited in such
quantities that the stream built up for itself a
channel higher than the waters of the Gulf it-
self. Not only this was done, but the delta was
built out sufficiently far to divide the narrow
arm of the ocean into two parts, one part still
opening into the ocean, and the other part
forming an inland sea. This latter body of
water is known to geologists as the Blake Sea,
it having been named in honor of Professor
William P. Blake who accompanied the expedi-
tion which first satisfactorily explored the re-
gion. The isolated waters of the inland sea soon
began to dry up under the intense heat of the
desert sun, and, as they receded from the moun-

114 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

tain borders at the northwestern end of the
sink, there came to exist there a large, flat, iso-
lated area separated ‘from the other adjacent
regions by high mountains and the remaining
waters of the great Blake Sea. The animals and
plants which came to occupy this region, being
cut off from others of their kind by natural
barriers, in many cases finally developed char-
acters peculiar to themselves, and in some in-
stances these characters became sufficiently
marked to form new species. The Palm Springs
ground squirrel was one of these animals that
have shown in marked manner the effects of
this isolation. Although the ancient Blake Sea
has dried up and the recently formed Salton
Sea is the only physical feature restraining the
general distribution of the ground squirrel over
the sands of the entire Salton Sink, yet he clings
to his ancient home and maintains his identity
as a distinct species of the northwestern arm of
the Colorado Desert.

ELEODES, THE BEETLE THAT STANDS
ON HIS HEAD

ELEODES, THE BEETLE THAT STANDS
ON HIS HEAD

(Eleodes sp.)

Any one who has traveled much in the region
west of the Mississippi, especially in the South-
western United States or Lower California,
must have often seen the curiously behaved and
pungent-odored pinacate beetles or tumble-
bugs (Eleodes). These interesting, black-bod-
ied, hard-shelled beetles are so prevalent in one
part of Mexico that a mountain range and the
whole surrounding region has taken its name
from them. I refer to the Pinacate mountain
country of Sonora.

The outstanding feature of interest in respect
to these creatures is their habit when alarmed
or disturbed of elevating their bodies and lit-
erally standing on their heads. If excited too
much while on the run, they will frequently tip
themselves up vertically so quickly that they
tumble heels over head, often landing on their
backs. They then will either feign death or

118 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

turn over quickly and try to make away as
hurriedly as possible — their second hurried
run often ending in another somersault as
ludicrous as the first. It is not surprising that
the children often call them “circus bugs.”

I recently spent several hours trying to find
out just exactly how Eleodes, the tumblebug,
rights himself so effectively and quickly when
after a tumble he lands on his back. The per-
formance is done so rapidly that it takes some
patience to find out the order of procedure;
but when one wants to find out movements
employed in so adept a trick he cares little
about time.

And now this is the way it is done. The two
middle (second pair) legs are straightened out
downward, thus elevating the inverted beetle
off the ground. When the body is well propped
up, one of the rigid legs is suddenly elbowed so
that the insect quickly goes down on one side,
and a rotary movement is started. A slight
heave now given by the rear third foot on the
opposite side sends the insect over, and away
the beetle runs.

But sometimes Eleodes is not so awkward that

ELEODES THE BEETLE 119

he tumbles over, and then you see him assume
the head down position and stay in that attitude
for minutes at a time, so long that you would
judge him weary beyond endurance. He gen-
erally waits until you go your way and then
scuttles under cover.

The actions of this beetle that kicks his heels
into the air are explained to the satisfaction of
the Zufii Indians in a curious little folk-tale
entitled ‘“‘The Coyote and the Beetle.’ I give
it as told by Mr. Frank Cushing in his charming
“Zuni Folk-Tales”’:

Well, in ancient times on the pathway leading
around Fat Mountain, there was one of these
beetles running about in all directions in the sun-
shine when a Coyote came trotting along. He
pricked up his ears, lowered his nose, arched his
neck, and struck out his paw toward the Beetle.

“Ha!”’ said he, ‘‘I shall bite you!”

The Beetle immediately struck his head down
close to the ground, and, lifting his antenna,
deprecatingly exclaimed, “Hold on! Hold on,
friend! Wait a bit, for the love of mercy! I hear
something very strange down here!”

“Humph!” cried the Coyote. ‘‘What do you
hear?”’

“Hush! Hush!” cried the Beetle, with his head
still to the ground. ‘‘Listen!”’

120 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

So the Coyote drew back and listened most
attentively. By and by the Beetle lifted himself
with a long sigh of relief.

“Okwe!”” exclaimed the Coyote. ‘What was
going on?”

“The Goop SOUL save us!”’ exclaimed the Beetle
with a shake of his head. ‘‘I have heard them say-
ing down there that to-morrow they would chase
away and thoroughly chastise everybody who de-
filed the public trails of this country, and they are
making ready as fast as they can!”’

‘Souls of my ancestors!” cried the Coyote. “I
have been loitering along the trail this very morn-
ing, and have defiled it repeatedly. I’Il cut!”
And away he ran as fast as he could go.

The Beetle in pure exuberance of spirits turned
somersaults and struck his head in the sand until
it was quite turned.

Thus did the Beetle in the days of the ancients
save himself from being bitten... . Thus shortens
my story.

Though often spoken of as a bug, this insect
is a true beetle. We know this because he chews
his food and has hard horny wing covers. Bugs
always suck their food through a long, needle-
like proboscis, or beak, and they have soft wing
covers. One day I became curious to know what
was under the high arched wing covers of the
tumblebug. A dissection revealed that a great

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ELEODES THE BEETLE 121

hollow air-filled space took up most of the room,
and that only a very little place was given for
the abdomen. This explained to me why I had
always been deceived when I attempted to
judge the weight of the tumblebug by his size.

The food of these beetles is largely dried
vegetation and fungi. This is true both in the
larval and in the adult stages; hence I cannot
see any special virtue in ending their lives by
stepping on every one one sees, as is the habit
with some unthinking and cruel people. The
pinacate beetles, as they are often called in the
Southwestern United States and Mexico, ex-
hibit a good deal of dexterity in eating their
food. Time and time again I have seen them
hold a food morsel down to the ground with one
foot, much as a dog does his bone, while gnaw-
ing it. Also I have seen them take up a piece
of food and run away with it when disturbed,
holding it up with their two front feet as they
made away.

There seems to be no place too desolate or
sunscorched for these creatures to live in.) On

1 My notebook records the finding of these insects on the
very summit of San Gorgonio Peak (11,485 feet), a fact which
shows their wide altitudinal distribution.

122. DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

my journeys across the bleakest wind-swept
sands of the deserts, where the very minimum
of animal life was existent, and where few spe-
cies of even the hardiest xerophytic plants eked
out a miserable round of life, I have found the
pinacate beetles in comparative abundance.
They are exceptionally hardy creatures and
even in such untoward places live to be several
years old; at least this many be said of the more
resistant species. Most of the species are night
wanderers, but many are abroad in the scorch-
ing light of the desert days,

THE MASON BEES

THE MASON BEES
(Anthophora sp.)

As I turned into the little trail and climbed the
steep, rock-strewn slope that leads up to the
entrance of the precipitous cafion behind my.
house, the herb-scented winds that blew so
steadily from off the warm sands bore to me the
hum of industrious bees. Turning expectantly,
I walked back to my right a short distance, and
there at the base of an enormous rock I found
the dry, bare, hard-baked ground covered deep
with small pellets of earth resembling worm
castings, and riddled with the holes of solitary
bees. So many were the burrows that the
ground looked like the top of an enormous
pepper-box. Above were thousands of busy in-
sects flying about—a_ bedazzling, buzzing
cloud of industry that almost made me be-
wildered as I looked at it. I took it for granted
that the bees were tolerant creatures and too
busy to give me much attention with their
stings, and in this confidence I was not disap-

126 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

pointed. In order to see them to greatest ad-
vantage I got right down on my hands and
knees, and much of the time held my face and
magnifying-glass within a few inches of the
openings of the burrows.

I soon succeeded in locating among the cloud
of diligent bees one that was trying to find a
site for her nest. In making this determination
she was aided by her antennz, with which she
was stroking the adamantine earth. She seemed
restless, and often made circling flights above
the place she was inspecting. When once she
had decided upon a site, she began immediate
operations on the burrow by squirting saliva
from her proboscis upon the ground in much the
same fashion that a Chinaman squirts water
from his mouth when sprinkling clothes at the
laundry. This gave her a sort of human look
that was most amusing. With the aid of the
dexterous mandibles she took up the soil,
quickly made it into small pellets, and then
clawed these out with the forefeet. Again she
squirted saliva — several jets of it — and more
earth was scraped out.

The work of throwing out the earthen pellets

THE MASON BEES 127

seemed to be an easy task for her until the hole
was over ‘‘bee deep.” But after the hole grew
deeper our excavator found the task so difficult
that she had to adopt new tactics. So now she
began throwing the earth beneath her and out
of the hole with her rear legs. One could not
help comparing her motions with those of a dog
digging an animal from its hole. To keep the
tube well rounded I could see her constantly
turning her body this way and that, as she
worked now on one side and then on the other.
The edges of the burrow and of the cylindrical
tubular case itself were smoothed and made firm
by the constant application of wax, secreted
from glands on her own body, and squirting on
of saliva. When the tube was completed, she
built about the orifice a small circular collar of
mortar which she compounded of particles of
earth, minute pieces of gravel, and her own
saliva, so that the hollow, cistern-like cell
looked very much like an old-fashioned well
with its round curb, or coaming, about the
opening. Ten minutes after it was made, I was
amazed to find that this cement had set so hard
and had become so rigid that, although I did

128. DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

my best to crush the little collar between my
thumb and forefinger, I found it impossible; and
the circular curb was less than an eighth of an
inch thick! The bee’s success as a cement-maker
must ever remain a recurring wonder to man.

All the time our mason was working on her
cell she had to be on the lookout for the lazy
bees who were trying to snatch an opportunity
to get possession of a cell without doing the
necessary work of making it. The sense of
proprietorship was very strongly developed in
this bee, and, when any other bee came too
near her domicile, she hustled her off her
premises in a hurry. Often she jumped upon
the trespasser and with stinging arguments
engaged her in a rough-and-tumble fight, the
two bees rolling over and over in the dust while
it was going on.

When complete, the mason’s burrow was
about two inches deep. It went straight down-
ward at first for about an inch and then curved
slightly to one side. This last part, which was
to hold the honey and the egg, was a little
larger than the tube above it and much re-
sembled a small pocket.

THE MASON BEES 129

That most beautiful of all our salvias, the
thistle sage, was growing plentifully in the
vicinity and spreading ‘abroad over the desert
the glory of its ethereal, lilac-blue blossoms.
To these honey-laden flowers the mother bee
now made constant trips, for from these she
must get the sweet nectar and pollen that make
the molasses-like paste on which the grubs are
fed. Thousands of other bees were engaged in
the same necessary industry and the air about
was filled with the humming of the zealous
workers. The mother early provisioned her cell
with a store of honey and pollen, mixing the
paste according to the ‘‘inveterate and fixed
routine of her ancestors’’; always the honey was
disgorged from the mouth, and then the pollen
brushed off the hairs beneath the body, and the
two substances mixed. The paste filled the
burrow almost half full, and on this the minute
egg was laid.

Now began the work of sealing up the cell.
This was accomplished by laying in a thick
concave plug of pure hard wax. This complete,
the bee began, to my surprise, excavating all
about underneath the little earthen collar about

130 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

the entrance of the hole — the collar, which at
such an expense of care and labor, she had
built but a few minutes before. Never did she
leave her exertions until the beautiful coaming,
now undermined, fell into the pit she had made,
broken forever. In the case of some of the other
bees I watched, the small ring of mortar was
loosened and carried off in sections just before
it caved in.

The time was now ripe for making a final
filling of the opening above the wax plug;
for not a sign of the burrow must remain to
lure parasites to the precious honey treasure
beneath. The mother bee accordingly went
about the edge of the hole and scraped earth
into it until full. Again so near were her mo-
tions like those of a dog burying his bone
that it was hard to realize that this small crea-
ture was an insect and not some diminutive
mammal.

This was but one of several burrows that
this mother and her consorts made in similar
manner. Hour after hour for several days the
industry of burrow excavating, provisioning,
and sealing was plied, and never ceased until

THE MASON BEES 131

the sun sank low beyond the mountains and
the last rays of the evening lights tinted with
their afterglow the desert plain and its border-
ing hills.

Weary with the arduous labors of the day
those bees whose domiciles were not yet com-
plete, corked the entrances to their burrows
with their own bodies, placing them in upside
down position with only the tip of their abdo-
mens protruding. Thus did they guard their
honey treasures from the night marauders and
noxious parasites.

As soon as the sunshine of the morning came
to warm up their chilled and stiffened bodies,
they were again at work. Those who had com-
pleted their cells the night before were now
fashioning new ones, and those who had incom-
plete burrows were busy putting on the finish-
ing touches. Each bee lays from eight to ten
eggs, and for every egg a cell was made and pro-
visioned with the honey paste.

After the third day the burrows were all
complete and the adamantine ground looked
almost as it had before. The bees had aban-
doned the scene of their labors and doubtless

132, DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

were never to see it again, nor the offspring
that should later emerge to take their turn at
the brief space of life allotted to the solitary

bees.

THE DESERT BIGHORN AND NEAR
RELATIVES

THE DESERT BIGHORN AND NEAR
RELATIVES

(Ovis nelsoni)

In the most inaccessible cafions, and on the
rugged, barren, and desolate heights of those
isolated mountains of mystic solitude which
thrust their serrated pinnacles and roughened
shoulders upward from the level of the desert
plains, dwells the largest and most majestic
of desert animals, the desert bighorn. It seems
strange that this near cousin of our Rocky
Mountain bighorn should find conditions con-
genial to his tastes in an almost waterless land
whose summers exhibit an unusual number of

1 Until quite recently all of the Far Western desert bighorns,
including those which occupy the mountains of northern Lower
California, were thought to belong to the species nelsoni, but
now it is shown that the sheep occupying the Lower California
highlands belong to the species cremnobates. The Nelson big-
horn, the true specimen of which was taken by Mr. E. W. Nel-
son, of the Biological Survey, on the Grapevine Mountains of
California, is the dominant species of western Nevada and
eastern California. The foym found in the low desert ranges
south of the Gila and east of the Colorado River in Arizona
and northern Sonora are referred to the subspecies gazllardi of
the Rocky Mountain bighorn.

136 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

days whose temperature reaches a hundred
degrees or more. But he is the hardy frontiers-
man of his race, enjoying, like our Western set-
tlers and adventurers of the early days, the
buffetings of the stern elements and the free-
dom of the wild places. Among all his kinsmen,
it is he that has ventured farthest southwest
from the original ancestral home in the elevated
plateaus and mountains of Turkestan.

The male desert bighorn, with his stocky
body, noble, splendidly poised head, and mas-
sive, gracefully curled horns, is a picture of
animal vigor. There is an appearance of natural
composure and dignity about him that must
compel the attention of the most disinterested
observer. He is somewhat smaller in size and
paler in color than the Rocky Mountain big-
horn, but a no less imposing creature. A full-
grown individual is as large as a third-grown
heifer, and may measure close to sixty inches
from point of nose to tip of tail. As is usual
among wild sheep, the female is smaller than
the ram and the horns are much reduced.
Stephens gives the average weights of an adult
male and female Nelson bighorn as two hun-

SAONAIOS AO AWACVOV VINXOAIIVO AHL NI dnowo
(Sajpqoumas9d S14) NUOHOIA LUYYSAA

THE DESERT BIGHORN 137

dred and fifty and one hundred and fifty
pounds respectively.

Few animals support a head as heavy in pro-
portion to the size of the body. A head and
neck I have before me as I write weighed forty
pounds when taken. The cores of the great
horns are made of almost solid bone, and these
add greatly, of course, to the weight of the
rigidly built skull. Imagine if you can the
nature of the impact of such a battering organ
when driven forward by the strong body engine.
Is it strange that in the battles which take place
for the possession of the ewes necks are broken
and lives exacted?

The growth of the horns of wild sheep is a
curious phenomenon which has attracted the
interest of naturalists for many years. The
bony vascular core borne on the frontal bone is
permanent, but its*covering is renewed from
time to time by the growth of a new sheath of
cornified epidermis. This new cone of horny
tissue is formed on the surface of the bony core,
and as it thickens, the growth of the preceding
season is pushed outward toward the end of the
horn. Since the horn-sheath is not shed at any

138 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

regular time, but slowly splits off and wears
away through contact with the brush and rocks
(the oldest always going first), there is found at
any time the remains of many seasons’ horn
production, each marked by a ring showing
where the cornified growth of the preceding
season broke loose at the root as it was pushed
outward toward the apex of the horn. Desert
sheep are rarely to be found without broken
horns. This, according to one authority, is
due to the fact that they use them in seasons
to drought for prying among the rocks and
boulders in search of certain succulent bulbs
which serve them as thirst-quenchers until the
springs are replenished and flow again.
Flocks of bighorns must of necessity occupy
pretty well-defined areas contiguous to the in-
frequently found water-holes and springs. They
generally come to the tinajas or tanks to drink
in the late afternoon or evening. The waters of
the smaller springs are often heavily impreg-
nated with mineral salts, but that found in the
tanks — as the natural reservoirs of the desert
cafions are called —is pure and delicious, the
supply being renewed by every rain. These

THE DESERT BIGHORN 139

deep, rocky, gravel-filled basins are nearly al-
ways located just below some high “dry fall,”
and the sheep must often approach them over
steep, tortuous paths. This is a decided ad-
vantage to them, as it gives them an oppor-
tunity to note the presence of enemies before
descending for water.

There are no definite migrations among big-
horns except the vertical ones. At the approach
of winter the sheep living in the higher moun-
tain ranges, such as the Funeral, Santa Rosa,
and Providence Mountains, descend to the
lower rocky foothills and mesas adjacent to the
desert plains to feed on the galetta grass; but
they go no farther. They know better than to
abandon rough grounds, for it is only on such
surfaces that they are able adequately to pro-
tect themselves and their young from the
persecutions of coyotes and man. Sheep have
been known to cross the open desert, but, as
Dr. Mearns observed, they are probably at
such times passing from one mountain range to
another.

When spring arrives the flocks work upward
to the zone just below the pifions. At this

140 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

season and during the summer the tender twigs
of teamster’s tea (Ephedra) and the new leaves
of the buckthorn, rhus, and other shrubs are
eaten in preference to grass. When I ques-
tioned the Indians concerning the summer food
of the desert sheep, they almost invariably told
me that the bighorns then ate many barrel
cactuses, breaking them open with their horns.
This I can readily believe, for I have often seen
evidences of their banquets in the kitchen
middens about the bases of the mutilated cac-
tuses.

The single young is brought forth in March.
By this time the ewes have retired to places of
seclusion, selected because of their inaccessi-
bility to predacious animals. The mothers with
their young are always exceedingly alert, watch-
ful, and sagacious, and from their favored posi-
tions they can easily detect the oncoming of a
gunman or other enemy. When approached
they may allow their impelling curiosity to hold
them for a while, but at the proper time they
quietly drop over the edge of the prominences
which they have been occupying and by the
time the pursuer has reached their former post

THE DESERT BIGHORN 141

they are far out of sight. They are very active
and sure-footed animals, their capacity for
exertion is almost illimitable, and on such
occasions they do not hesitate to descend by
seemingly impossible leaps to the shelf-like
ledges far down the steep walls of the slotlike
gorges of their mountain home. The lambs are
able to follow their parents down the steepest
cliffs without the least difficulty. To pursue
the sheep to such dizzy positions is almost
impossible or too laborious and hazardous for
the most brave-hearted gunmen.

There is something incredible in the story
that bighorns in jumping over cliffs alight on
their horns, and those who have really become
acquainted with these animals in their wild
home will not venture to tell such tales about
them. In fact, such persons are emphatic in
their denials of such foolish and fanciful state-
ments.

Almost incessant hunting by Indians, pros-
pectors, and lawless professional hunters has
so reduced the original bands of desert sheep
that few large flocks remain. The automobile
has now enabled the undiscriminating city

142 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

hunters to get back into remote mountain
ranges where until lately the sheep had at least
some immunity from molestation because of
their isolation. The hunters who go into the
desert by automobile are too often unwilling to
hunt in real sportsmanlike manner, and they
resort to the most miserable and contemptible
means for bringing in their game. Having sup-
plied themselves with plenty of ammunition
(generally enough, as one old-timer said, to kill
all the sheep between Death Valley and the
Mexican border), tobacco, and grub, they locate
a water-hole to which the sheep are accustomed
to resort, and then wait for the sheep to come in
to drink. Often they care nothing for the age
or sex of the animals, and an indiscriminate
slaughter of the young and females through
many seasons is bringing its sure result—a
gradual extinction of one of our noblest desert
animals. It is remarkable that the sheep have
held their own as well as they have.

DON COYOTE

DON COYOTE
(Canis ochropus estor)

WHETHER out of curiosity or contempt every-
body seems to be interested in the ways and
doings of the clever coyote. His ability to raid
hen-roosts successfully without being caught,
and his cunning in combination with his seem-
ing cowardice, have brought him into dis-
repute among all people. Perhaps no Western
animal has had so many cursings breathed upon
him.

And if he is held in contempt among men,
what must his social standing among animals
be! Surely none of them love him. I have
watched too many merry waltzings of the
kangaroo rats on the moonlit sands broken up
by his approach, seen where too many mouse
homes have been dug out and destroyed, wit-
nessed rabbits escape capture too often to
have any doubts as to just what they must
think of him. Even the dog, his nearest cousin,
ordinarily disavows any relation to him and

146 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

snarls and barks savagely at him when he comes
near him on the hunt. It is not strange that
in the Southwestern Indian folk-tales, wherein
the coyote figures so largely, the smaller ani-
mals make him the butt of so many jokes and
that they give him so little sympathy in all his
troubles.

Like an outlaw the coyote is a wanderer ever
on the move and swift of foot. He makes his
miserable home among the rocks of the shrubby
hills or seeks shelter in holes made in the steep
banks of barrancas or washes leading down from
the mountains. In these retreats he spends his
days, but when the first stars are beginning to
show themselves he comes out of his hole,
shakes his dusty coat, and, after giving a few
short, ringing, yapping barks to announce him-
self to his comrades, sets forth on the long hunt-
ing excursions of the night. These journeys are
often of remarkable length, it being not uncom-
mon for him to travel ten or twenty miles out
across the desert and back again before sunrise
and breakfast.

It is both interesting and amusing to follow
the tracks of this shiftless, seemingly homeless

DESERT LYNX

COYOTE AT BAY

DON COYOTE 147

fellow over the sandy dunes, watching where he
goes, now in a straight course, now running out
of his way to smell down some rat hole, then
again going with an aimless gait on and on over
the sands until again arrested by some silly
curiosity. The position of the track-marks
made on these unhurried excursions often shows
that he runs somewhat sidewise, as is common
with little dogs, to prevent his feet from hit-
ting. When you see where he has been on the
swift chase, signs of this peculiar gait are not
apparent.

Sometimes when hunger drives him to it the
coyote is out and on the hunt during the day,
and occasionally then you will get a good look
at him and see him chasing his game. The
larger animals like the rabbits he obtains by
running them down in the open where there is
little chance for them to elude him. What mice
and wood rats are not obtainable on the chase
are dug from their holes and gobbled up before
they have time to escape. The coyote’s meddle-
some nose leads him to many a clutch of quail’s
eggs, and he leaves nothing to tell of his visit
but broken shells and a yolk-stained nest.

148 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

Beetles and grasshoppers, horned lizards, and
even the bitter-skinned toads are used for food.
In spite of his bad odor, the skunk is preyed
upon. The coyote’s strong appetite for young
pigs, chickens, and sheep is an impulse which
leads him to the rashest butchery, so that not
without cause is he almost universally declared
by “‘cowmen’’.to be the ‘‘worst varmint that
infests the earth.’”’ Once having tasted blood,
he seems to lose all sense of prudence and of
fear, and he comes about the ranch yards in
the broad light of day and walks boldly among
the cattle pens awaiting his chance to seize
any unsuspecting fowl or young pig which in
search of food may have wandered too far away
from the barns.

During years of terrible drought, when the
springs dry up in early April and scarcely a
blade of grass comes up to provide food for
the hungry, lean cattle that wander over the
hills, the coyotes become very aggressive, take
advantage of the weakness of the mother cows,
and snatch the young calves when scarcely
born. If a calf is attacked when near other
cattle, the whole herd, hearing the bellowing

DON COYOTE 149

of the mother, will likely come to the rescue
and charge upon the murderer. This, the coy-
otes seemingly know, and so they prefer to
find some miserable cow and her calf out alone
on the range. Even full-grown cattle may be
attacked when through weakness and thirst
they get down and are unable to resist the on-
slaughts of voracious enemies. On such occa-
sions the coyotes approach them from behind,
and, while the poor animals are yet alive, they
will tear out their entrails.

A prospector by the name of Gus Lederer,
who lives at Corn Springs in the Chuckawalla
Mountains of California, complains bitterly to
me about the way the coyotes kill all his cats.
A coyote scalp with a bunch of chicken feath-
ers and a piece of cat’s hide were here nailed
upon a palm tree as a proclamation and warn-
ing of what may happen to any other coyote
that may become too familiar about his place
in the future.

At certain seasons of the year, when other
food is scarce, coyotes eke out a scanty living
by feeding on dry manzanita berries, gourds
(hence often called coyote melons), dates from

150 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

the Washingtonia palms, and other dried fruits.
Lean bones tell the tale of hunger and under-
nourishment, but no one cares. That is what
one gets for being a coyote. If driven to it, this
ever-hungry animal vagabond will even eat
carrion and not be ashamed. I have often
wondered if he rolls on the carcass, as dogs do,
before eating it.

The coyote possesses a special fondness for
watermelons, and always seems to delight in
plugging the ripest and best ones in the patch.
He is never satisfied with a single melon’s flavor,
but insists on taking a sample bite or two out
of every good melon on the place. Here again
he lets his foolish eating habits run at cross-
purposes with the desires of man and invokes
retribution upon himself in the form of poisoned
fruits, traps, and rifle balls. In the Colorado
Desert the date-growers tell me that the coy-
otes are so fond of dates that they climb up into
the young trees to rob the fruit.

Now it must ever be remembered that the
coyote in spite of his sins plays a valuable part
in preserving the balance in nature. Were it
not for his keeping the rabbits and ground

F HENHOUSE MADE BY THE

PROO
CAHUILLA INDIA
THE LADDER IS REMOVED AT NIGHT AND THE CHICKENS

COVOTE

NS OF CALIFORNIA

ARE SAFE

DON COYOTE 151

squirrels in check, the country would long ago
have been overrun with these troublesome
rodents. Few of the ranchers who rail at the
coyote for his raids on their chicken coops and
vineyards realize what value he is to them.
The few hens and grapes he takes are small pay
for the number of destructive, grain-eating
rodents he annually destroys. Last autumn,
when I journeyed one very early morning
through a little mountain village where the
settlers were clearing land and raising their
first crops, and counted the jack rabbits in some
of the fields, I found sixty-two, in one instance,
on an acre plot of corn. It did not surprise
me that there was little worry expressed in
the neighborhood over the toils attending the
coming harvest season. The rabbits had taken
everything. These same settlers had carried
on for some time a consistent and continuous
campaign of coyote trapping and this plague
of rabbits was the result. They must now as-
sume the burden of controlling the rabbits by
themselves at cost of time, labor, and money, to
say nothing of the loss of crops in the mean-
time. ‘Civilized man has [often] proceeded

152, DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

so far,’ writes Lankester,! ‘‘in his interference
with extra-human nature, has produced for
himself and the living organisms associated
with him such a special state of things by his
rebellion against natural selection and _ his
defiance of Nature’s pre-human dispositions,
that he must either go on and acquire firmer
control of the conditions or perish miserably
by the vengeance certain to fall on the half-
hearted meddler in great affairs. We may,
indeed, compare civilized man to a successful
rebel against Nature, who by every step for-
ward renders himself liable to greater and
greater penalties, and so cannot afford to pause
or fail in one single step.”

All who intimately know the coyote concede
that he has a good sense of humor and that
there lurks behind those cold, crafty, green eyes
a passion for trickery. It is a great sport of his
to tantalize and play jokes on the ranch dogs
by keeping them up and in a state of growling
ill-humor half the night, robbing them and the
ranch people who own them of half their sleep.
He will bark beguilingly for hours, using his

1 Kingdom of Man (1911), pp. 31-32.

DON COYOTE 153

ventriloquistic powers to lead the dogs off in
the wrong direction, while his mates, who aid
him on the hunt, sally into the sheep corrals
and carry off the fattest of the flock. Finding
the sheep disappearing at the hands of this
murderous rogue, the rancher puts out his traps,
but too often finds the cunning shrewdness of
the coyote outwitting his best efforts to catch
him. Unless the lure of bait is extraordinarily
attractive and free from human taint, or the
traps unusually well placed, the “educated”’
freebooter will never be caught. He recognizes
that man is his worst and most insidious enemy,
and he looks suspiciously and contemptuously
upon all human inventions to work his ruin.
To show his scorn and let the farmer know how
near he has been to the cruel trap without
being caught, he often defiles the trap with his
excreta, leaving his enemy to curse the wily
and elusive creature who again has outwitted
him and rendered nugatory all his best efforts
to protect his sheep.

The female coyote is a conscientious mother,
and it is a profound moment in her life when the
little grayish-brown puppies are born into the

154 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

world of light. The old roving nature now gives
way to the maternal instinct to stay as much as
possible about the den and guard, suckle, and
train the young. The number of puppies in a
litter is about five, born during the first days of
April. They are as awkward and clumsy as
can be, with big heads and ears out of all pro-
portion to the size of their bodies. I occasion-
ally meet some desert man who entertains the
curious idea that coyote mothers feed their
young by regurgitation; that is, by first eating
and half digesting the food themselves and then
throwing it up into the young coyotes’ mouths.
One old fellow regarded me with somewhat of a
look of mingled scorn and pity when I showed
hesitancy in believing his statement to that
effect. The truth is, of course, that, like all baby
canines, the young subsist entirely upon the
mother’s milk until they cut their teeth. But
even before they have learned to eat solid food,
you may see them almost any day playing
about the hole making pretense of chewing on
old bones or playing at tearing the carcass of
some animal the mother has brought in for
their delight and to encourage the strengthen-

DON COYOTE 155

ing of the baby jaws. They are a rollicking lot
and are quite as ready to chew at one another’s
feet and ears as upon other objects. They
tumble and roll, growl, scramble and scrap in
sham fight, their green, close-set, slanting eyes
expressing the happiness they enjoy. Play is
now the fundamental, uppermost, and dominat-
ing business of their lives. The instincts of
youth urge them on to the expenditure of their
overflowing energy in the matching of strength,
and in this competitive play they acquire the
elasticity of mind and muscle so essential in
after life. The mortality among young coyotes
is not great; for their natural enemies, with the
exception of man, are few. In a remarkably
short time after birth these puppies are ready
to shift for themselves and meet the hard strug-
gle before them.

Coyote puppies early learn that their greatest
safety lies in flight when danger confronts them.
Curiosity seldom leads them to sit still or stand
and look when they are approached. Brand
this trait with the ill-sounding name of coward-
ice if you will. It is this so-called cowardice
that means to the coyote triumph in the arena

156 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

of efficiency and the attainment of that which
is dearest to the heart of all living creatures —
the continuance of life. The law of self-preser-
vation is written deep upon the mind. Its bio-
logical significance is great. What animal has
been able, like the coyote, to baffle hunters and
trappers and preserve its kind under conditions
so wretched? Except in the most civilized parts
of his old range he still seems almost as plenti-
ful as ever, and his dismal barking serenades
may still be heard at night in the foothills and
plains as of old. During a series of seasons when
high prices for pelts prevail, he is much reduced
in numbers (during one winter recently when
skins brought as high as ten and twenty
dollars apiece, over four hundred skins were
taken out of the Searles Lake region on the
Mohave Desert alone), but as soon as prices
drop again and trapping ceases, the loss is
quickly replenished.

The most serious disease to which coyotes are
subject is hydrophobia. When once they get it,
the consequences are always serious, especially
to man. In their mad wanderings over wide dis-
tricts they bite skunks, dogs, cattle, and other

DON COYOTE 167

animals, and these in turn attack and commu-
nicate the disease to human beings. Serious
outbreaks of rabies are thus experienced from
time to time, especially in the more remote re-
gions where the coyote is still abundant.! The
little spotted skunk generally gets the blame.

1 So dangerous was the widespread outbreak of rabies among
coyotes and bobcats in Nevada and southwestern Idaho in 1916
that Congress made an emergency appropriation of $75,000
to help combat the disease.

“During the year the State authorities of Nevada treated
more than sixty persons who were bitten by either wild or
domesticated animals. So great was the dread inspired by the
presence of these maddened wild animals that children were
accompanied to school by armed guards. Driven by their
rabid blindness, coyotes entered the yards of dwellings, attack-
ing dogs, cats, human occupants, or any object they might
encounter; they entered feed lots and snapped and infected
cattle, sheep, and other domesticated animals; and also at-
tacked pedestrians, horsemen, and automobiles on the public
highways. The destruction of live stock was enormous. In a
feed lot at Winnemuca, Nevada, a single rabid coyote caused
the loss of twenty-seven steers. The State of Nevada promptly
appropriated $30,000 to codperate with the United States Bio-
logical Survey in waging a campaign against the pests in that
State....

“The movements of live stock between their summer and
winter pasture ranges, with accompanying movements of dogs
and predatory animals, made possible an extension of the
disease into the contiguous territory of eastern Oregon, southern
Idaho, northern California, the western half of Utah, and even
into eastern Washington. Cattle and sheep were destroyed in
large numbers through the extension of the disease, and at least
1500 persons were bitten by rabid animals.” (Yearbook of the
Department of Agriculture, 1920.)

158 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

Dogs and coyotes readily interbreed, with
the result that you will find in country places,
especially among the Indians, who seemingly
care little about the breeds of their dogs, mon-
grels of every gradation. The domestic dog is
naturally jealous, pugnacious, and brave, but
when he has the least bit of coyote blood in him
he is almost always worthless to the needs of
man. He is then shy and distrustful, and on the
least occasion sneaks off and runs. His form is
lean and his coat lacks the luster, smoothness,
and fineness of the domestic stock.

The ordinary coyote’s color is a brownish
gray, but those of the desert regions are nearly
always of a lighter color in harmony with their
surroundings. Once in a while an albino coyote
is found, an animal whose hair is pure white.
Lumholtz, in his delightful travel book, en-
titled ‘‘ New Trails in Mexico,” tells of several
observed along the shores of the Laguna Prieta
and at Carborca. I have never heard of a pure
black coyote, melanism evidently not being as
much exhibited among them as among foxes
and some other animals.

Normal coyotes need seldom be feared by

DON COYOTE 159

man. Only once have I heard of them attack-
ing a human being. One of the ranchmen at
the Whitewater Ranch on the Colorado Desert
was irrigating one evening and was approached
by a small pack of lean, hungry-looking coyotes.
They dogged his steps and menacingly tried to
snap at him. He was able to keep them off and
finally to drive them away only by throwing
water from the ditch upon them with his shovel.
Though coyotes are more or less sociable
animals among themselves, there are seldom
more than two or three together, though their
rollicking, yelping barks would lead one to
think two dozen were coming near. Their voices
often have a peculiar human sound about them,
so that one might easily imagine their cries to
be those coming from a group of playful, yelling
youngsters. I well remember an old lady, who
had spent all her life in Chicago, exclaiming
when she first heard the coyotes barking,
“‘Where are all those noisy bad boys?”

THE BATTLE OF THE REPTILES

THE BATTLE. OF THE REPTILES

I VIVIDLY remember the well-meaning lady who,
after listening for two months to a course of
lectures on Natural History at one of our
summer resorts, exclaimed, by way of showing
her interest and appreciation of the lecturer:
“How I would like to go out an hour with you
some time and see all these things you have told
us about!”

Allin an hour! As if the world of out-of-doors
was a great cinema film, and all one had to do
was to take a walk with a naturalist and see
the whole interesting performance reeled off the
screen in an hour!

Nature is in no hurry to make show of her-
self. She works slowly, often infinitely slowly,
and the poor misguided souls who are of that
same mind as Kipling’s monkeys, who wanted
to know and do all things ‘‘complete in a
minute or two,’’ must ever remain disappointed
with Nature’s deliberation and seeming pro-
crastination.

164 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

“Gold,” said an old prospector, when asked
by an inquisitor where one might locate it, ‘‘is
where you find it; that’s where it is.’’ “And
so one must say of the interesting phenomena
and incidents of Nature’s programme. Some-
times one must travel for hours or even days
before seeing anything unusual. Then again
there will come days which seem crowded with
spectacular and interesting sights; as though
Dame Nature had turned generous, and hur-
ried the events of the weeks into a single day.
But whichever way the tide turns, the nature-
lover is content, knowing that what does not
come to him to-day will come on another. If
he watches long enough, he will always see
something worth his while.

On the evening when first I saw the mason
bees at work, I said to myself while going home:
“This is plunder sufficient for any day.” You
may imagine my mingled surprise and delight
when there was staged before my eyes, in addi-
tion, the unusual reptilian battle described in
this sketch.

The sun had already been down half an hour
and the lingering reflected rays of daylight

THE BATTLE OF THE REPTILES 165

were just about to flee, when, in the dusky light,
I saw beside my path a ball as peculiar as ever
eyes had seen. There on the ground was a
brilliantly colored king snake wound up into a
ball as tight and as intricately turned as a
Gilligan hitch. Protruding between the coils in
all sorts of most awkward, absurd, and out-
landish positions were the four legs of a large
gridiron-tailed lizard (Callisaurus, ventralis).
That expression, ‘‘closed in mortal combat,”
could never be used more appropriately than
to describe these creatures wrapped together
into this reptilian knot. The snake had wound
himself about the saurian’s body in such
fashion that it seemed as though every bone
in that lizard’s body must be broken, the ver-
tebre pulled apart, and the function of every
vital organ suppressed. The body was doubled
backwards so that the rump and head were
touching. So intent was the snake in his efforts
to bind in tighter the already over-squeezed
lizard that he seemed not to notice my presence
in the least, or even be disturbed when I
turned the living knot over with a stick.

As the writhing ball was turned, I noticed

166 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

that the lizard, who looked as though he had
been dead for some time, had his jaws closed
upon a fold of the snake’s skin near the neck.
“This,” I said, ‘‘is because rigor mortis has set
in and the jaws which had snapped in self-
defense when the snake attacked are now set
stiff in death. It’s good enough for you, old
snake. For once the biter has been bitten.”

There was not the least motion in the lizard’s
limbs; there was no doubt in my mind but that
all circulation of blood had long ago been cut
off by the constrictions of the snake’s lithe
body. As though attempting to begin swallow-
ing the lizard, the snake was now trying this
way and that to close his jaws over the saurian’s
head, but, since the lizard also had the snake
within its jaw-grip, the latter could get no hold
of any kind.

Inasmuch as the darkness of night was com-
ing on so rapidly that I feared I would not be
able to see the end of this interesting struggle,
and since my sympathies were decidedly against
the reptile who had so hard-heartedly caught
this poor lizard, I decided before leaving to
untie this reptilian Gordian knot and deprive

THE BATTLE OF THE REPTILES 167

the snake of his cruelly gotten prey. With the
aid of two sticks this was effected; but not with-
out some difficulty, for the snake had given the
lizard a double wrap besides tying his own body
into a classical single knot.

You may imagine what was presently my sur-
prise when I saw this lizard, now unwound, and
whom I had thought long ago dead, quick as a
flash spring backwards, and, righting himself,
dash at the snake and grasp him again just
behind the head.

Talk about being game; here was no coward
of any stripe. He leaped literally from the coils
of death back into the struggle. And he held
onto his opponent as tenaciously as a snapping
turtle. Though the snake now did his best to
get away — he doubtless had had quite enough
of it — the lizard held on with his iron grip and
even allowed himself to be dragged along by his
foe, who was now making his way toward a
near-by hole beneath the surface. Not to be
daunted when even this narrow opening was
entered, he permitted the snake to draw him
beneath the surface. When nothing but the
zebra-striped tail was protruding above the

168 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

opening of the burrow, I grasped it and pulled
the lizard off, allowing the snake to go free. My
opinions were now changing, and I began to
judge that the lizard might have been quite as
much the aggressor as the snake. After I pulled
the lizard away, he ran off a little to one side
and, tilting his head upward, looked at me
saucily and reproachfully, as much as to say,
“Well, what business do you have around here
to meddle in my affairs, anyway?”

“Scat,” I said, “you ungrateful beast!”
And he scurried off into the brush to rest and
ease up as best he could his much-stretched
limbs.

And of course you ask: ‘‘What happened to
the snake?’”’ And my only answer can be that
he crawled on down a hole; and he did it in a
hurry, too.

Since this occurred I have often speculated as
to how this battle between the reptiles began.
It no doubt would have been an interesting
thing to have witnessed the struggle from be-
ginning to end; for it would have given one such
a realistic picture of those struggles and scenes
of carnage which in ancient geologic times were

THE BATTLE OF THE REPTILES 169

staged between the huge carnivorous dinosaurs
and the massive, heavily armored, herbivorous,
monitor-like reptiles.

If you ask me to venture a guess as to who
would have been the victor in this struggle, I
will say, the snake, for he had every advantage.
It is common knowledge among old desert
travelers that the larger snakes quite generally
attack and eat lizards, especially the smaller
ones; also that the larger lizards prey upon the
more diminutive species, and that snakes eat
snakes. Mr. Gilman tells me that recently he
witnessed in his own yard at Banning, Cali-
fornia, a red racer devouring a black rattle-
snake. A young observer from Barstow on the
Mohave Desert has just sent me this interest-
ing experience:

“As I was coming out of our well, that is,
the pit in which the pump is, I came face to
face with a huge gopher snake which was eating
a medium-sized lizard. The reptile was about
half swallowed. I watched them for some time,
but as neither moved and I was in a hurry I
touched the snake with a stick. He immediately
opened his mouth and spewed the lizard out.

170 ._DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

The lizard’s forelegs were folded tightly against
his sides and he appeared to be dead, but ina
few minutes he opened his eyes, tried first one
leg, then another; and then on seeing me he ran
off at top speed. 1 was truly surprised, for I did
not think that anything could go through the
experience of being half eaten and still live,
much less be able to run off immediately after-
wards.”

THE PHAINOPEPLA

THE PHAINOPEPLA
\((Phainopepla nitens)

Wuat memories of lovely desert spring’ days
the name of this bird awakens! One can hardly
recall a walk then taken when one or more of
these stately bird sentinels were not seen grac-
ing the topmost twigs of some mesquite tree.
The generic Greek name phainopepla, which
means ‘‘shining coat,”’ was certainly well chosen
for this black-feathered aristocrat. To give
him an air of dignity beyond that which his
elegant form of body furnished him, Nature
adorned his head with a magnificent crest and
provided that the eye should be a flaming red.
On each wing of the male bird there is a clear
white wing patch, and when he flies upward the
effect of the contrast of color is most wonderful.
All these characters give this bird an individual-
ity which is very marked and he becomes to us
one of the easiest of birds to identify. The
female phainopepla, like the female Brewer
blackbird, lacks somewhat the beauty of her

174 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

mate in that her coat is only a deep brownish
gray color and the wing patch is but a dull white.

The phainopeplas are characteristic birds
of the Lower Sonoran Life-Zone of all our
Southwestern deserts. Some individuals, it is
true, occasionally stray outward to the coast
during the spring to nest in the sycamores and
to eat the scarlet pepper berries, but the major-
ity of them remain the year round in the mes-
quite thickets and juniper mesas of the deserts.

So close is the relation, on the Colorado
Desert, between the phainopeplas and the
mesquite tree that it may be safely stated that
the distribution of this bird there is coextensive
with that of the mesquites. Where there are
no mesquites you will find no phainopeplas.
In the branches of these trees grow the great
clumps of the mistletoe (Phoradendron cali-
fornica) which bears those beautiful pink and
pearly berries of which the phainopeplas are so
fond. During parts of the year they seem to
live almost exclusively upon them. In the early
spring the inconspicuous blossoms of the mistle-
toe attract myriads of insects and on these the
birds gorge to fatness.

YANWAS AO LVAH AHL ONINAC SIVWINY LUASAd AHL AO ANVW OL NOILOALOUd GUOdAV SAOVId HONS
NONVO LYdsSad V

THE PHAINOPEPLA 175

It is the most natural thing that the phaino-
peplas would choose as sites for their nests
these trees where they find so much of their
food. Generally the bird-home is built on a
horizontal branch of a mesquite tree just un-
der the mistletoe clump, where it will be well
screened from the eye of gazers by the myriads.
of down-hanging, blossoming stems. The rather
small nest in many ways resembles that of the
wood pewee. It is made entirely of fine mate-
rials bound together with pieces of spider web
and is lined with wool from tomentose plants
found in the vicinity. The eggs are an ashy-
blue color, thickly covered with bluish and
black spots, and generally number two to the
nest: occasionally there are three. The ques-
tion here arises: Why so few eggs? Reasoning
by inference it may be said that it is probably
because the phainopeplas have few natural
enemies. Generally Nature provides that ani-
mals with many natural enemies should rear
many young. Thus the quail which nests on
the ground lays from eight to fourteen eggs for
each setting. The almost universally hunted
hares are very prolific. But the band-tailed

176 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

pigeons, which build their nests high and roost
in the trees, lay but one egg.

The phainopeplas which remain throughout
the year on the desert breed much earlier than
those which nest nearer the coast. In such
locations as Banning and Beaumont, California,
which are close to the desert, and yet high
enough to have a later season, the desert-reared
young are often found sporting among the trees
when the adults which have come to the higher
zones to nest are just beginning to incubate
their eggs.

The male phainopepla is a very helpful mate,
always taking a very conspicuous part in con-
structing the nest and rearing the young; in-
deed, he often does the major part of the work,
the female only passively showing her interest
by sitting on some twig close by and looking
on approvingly. Instances are recorded in
which the male, having lost his mate through
some mishap, took entire charge of the nest-
lings and brought them up until they were able
to care for themselves.

Sometimes phainopeplas consort in small
flocks, but most often you see individuals

THE PHAINOPEPLA 177

perched solitarily like shrikes on the tips of
high mesquite twigs where the situation offers a
good lookout. Like the shrikes, too, they have a
way of occupying such positions for unusually
long periods. There they sit often for a quar-
ter of an hour at a time preening their feathers
and stretching their wings, otherwise remaining
almost motionless and in silence except as at
frequent intervals they repeat their mellow
flutelike whistle.

This call note is a simple one, but not without
character; for, like the phcebe’s melancholy and
plaintive note, it has a pleasing and soothing
quality which admirably harmonizes with the
quiet beauty of the landscape. During the
nesting season this simple note is supplemented
by a subdued but rich warble that has many
elements of real music.

My many observations of this silky-plumaged
bird lead me to believe that he is almost as good
an insect catcher as the phoebe. True, he is not
so diligent a worker, but when he sallies forth
from his perch and snaps at a fly he seldom
misses it. His habit of often returning to the
twig from which he has darted reminds one

178 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

strongly of the ways of the flycatchers. This
similarity of habit early gave the phainopepla
the common name of “ black-crested flycatcher,”
but since this appellation is misleading, its use
has been discouraged by ornithologists.

LATRODECTUS, THE POISONOUS

LATRODECTUS, THE POISONOUS
(Latrodectus mactans)

OF all the spiders feared by man to-day few
have the black reputation of those belonging
to the genus Laétrodectus. The much-feared
malmignatte of southern Europe, the dreaded
karakurte of southeastern Russia, the kapito
of New Zealand, the vancoho of Madagascar,
and our own American black widow are all
spiders of this genus. The American Latrodec-
tus is quite generally known on sight by the
Southwestern Indians, especially the older ones;
for it was long the practice among these peo-
ple to use these spiders, crushed, for poisoning
their arrow-points; but I am convinced that
not nine out of ten of the white people who
need to fear this noxious spider would know
her if they saw her, and this in spite of the fact
that she is one of our commonest Southwestern
spiders.

Latrodectus is one of our few spiders with a
purely black body. So black is it that often it

182. DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

shines like blackest satin and under certain
lights even has a greenish cast. The red spots
so much talked of in connection with this spider,
and which are necessary marks for her identi-
fication, are found on the underside of the, abdo-
men. These are not always red, but are! quite
as often only buff or a light corn color, a fact
well to keep in mind. They are in the shape of
two triangles set apex to apex and resemble
together an old-fashioned hour-glass; hence the
vernacular name for the species, ‘“ hour-glass
spider.’’ Sometimes on the back of the spider
there is a broken row of red dots running down
the middle of the back. The male spider, who is
also black, has, besides the red markings, four
pairs of red stripes running down the sides of
the abdomen. The female Latrodectus is a
comparatively large spider with an abdomen
often fully as large as a gooseberry or a large
shoe button. The Widow’s husband is much
smaller, generally only about one fourth as
large as his mate; he is seldom seen.

In accordance with her rapacious nature this
spider exhibits few zsthetic tastes in the build-
ing of her web. It isan unshapely and unbeauti-

LACTRODECTUS, THE POISONOUS 183

ful piece of construction, made of threads ex-
ceedingly coarse; in fact so coarse that one may
detect the presence of the black widow by her
web alone. No set pattern is used in its mak-
ing; a few silken strands which she has run criss-
cross with a more or less carelessly made funnel-
shaped, more closely woven retreat, built in
some dark corner, is all there is to the crude
structure.

When egg-laying time comes a small, globu-
lar, closely woven, rather hard, silken sack is
made, filled with tiny eggs and suspended by
several threads to the main web. Owing to the
collection of dust it is often a dirty white color.
The eggs soon hatch after being laid, but the
young do not necessarily emerge just then.
Sometimes they remain within the egg case
many days and moult before coming out;
further, they always wait for a sunny day to
come before showing themselves. They are at
first a light yellowish gray color, but after a
number of moults turn black like the parents.
Unlike the young lycosid spiders, who cling to
the mother and ride about for some time on her
back and legs, the young black widows show

Missing Page

Missing Page

186 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

small spider’s bite, nor have the nervous symp-
toms been so marked.

“Personally I prefer the bite of a rattler.”

In some cases the bite of Latrodectus is fol-
lowed by extreme tightening of the abdominal
muscles, few of the nervous symptoms then
being present. All of the abdominal muscles,
especially the short muscles of the hips, become
exceedingly rigid and the pain accompanying
this tonic spasm is intense. The pain subsides
after about forty-eight hours and no after effects
are noticed. The poison never seems to affect
the heart.

Though this spider is much feared by the
Indians, it is now known that, at least to some
extent, the venom was formerly used by them
as a cure for acute and chronic rheumatism and
a number of other ailments. A medicine man
at Cahuilla, Riverside County, California, who
used this remedy, prepared his patient for the
bite by a fast of two days and then allowed the
spider to bite the sufferer on the hand. The
patients who took this heroic treatment became
very sick, but were said to be free afterwards
from their old ailment. The case of a white

LACTRODECTUS, THE POISONOUS 187

settler who took the treatment from the Ca-
huillan medicine man, and was cured, came to
my attention just recently.

The black widow, or hour-glass spider, is
widely distributed in the United States, being
found, according to Emerton, ‘‘all over the
United States as far north as New Hampshire
and south through Florida, the West Indies,
and Chili.” It is very plentiful in Southern
California. In spite of its frequency, few peo-
ple are bitten. The spiders seldom bite unless
severely provoked. In almost every case of
which I can find authentic record, the persons
bitten were those living in country districts
and the bite was experienced while about out-
of-door toilets or barns where these spiders
resort to spin their webs across openings and in
dark corners.

THE LE CONTE THRASHER

THE LE CONTE THRASHER
(Toxostoma lecontet)

“IF you want to see a bird that can run, you
must watch for the little brownish bird that’s
got a long sickle bill,” said Charlie, my cowboy
friend, with whom I had been talking about
the fleet-footedness of the comical road-runner.
“They’s a bird that can really run. They’s
the greatest dodgers and runners and _ hiders
you ever did see. There’s only one way you can
ever catch one that I ever seen, and that is, by
chasing them down on horseback. But it’s
risky business trying to get one that way, that’s
what I know. Suppose your horse tumbles in a
badger hole when you’re chasing your bird at
breakneck speed and you go headlong into a
bunch of that awful cholla, then what would
you say? It’s no fun then, that’s sure. I
knowed a feller once, a cowman, over on the
Whitewater, who had just that thing happen
to him. He saw one of them birds, and just
for fun, he said he’d show us boys how to get

192 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

him. He started out full gallop after him and
chased the bird from one bush into another.
But that bird was such a good runner and got
under the bushes so quick every time, that he
kept that cowman guessin’ all the time where
he was. Of course no bird can keep on runnin’
and dodgin’ forever, and soon he got so tired
out he could n’t hardly go no further. Just
when that cowman thought he had his bird,
what should his horse do but step into a badg-
er’s hole while going full gait, and throw that
old man right into a cholla. Oh, but he was a
sight! All stuck up with dozens of prickly
cholla joints, and it hurt so bad that when we
came up to help pull ’em out he just yelled and
cried like a little boy. From head to foot his
clothes were pinned to his skin. That feller
don’t go bird-huntin’ and chasin’ no more; no,
no more. He says that birds can run in the
bushes forever and, never get bothered so far as
he is concerned.”

After hearing this interesting recital of this
bird’s running abilities from Charlie, I was
anxious to get a sight of one. I shall never
forget that day when I first saw my Le Conte

THE LE CONTE THRASHER 193

thrasher tearing like a fugitive from justice at
breakneck speed out of my sight. Almost
quicker than my eye could follow him he
dashed into a bush, and by the time I reached
the spot where I thought he was hidden I saw
him speeding a hundred yards away to get
under cover of another. Like the road-runner
he preferred running to flying and took wing
only when hard-pressed by his pursuer. Since
his color was so near that of the gray sands and
vegetation of his range, he slipped out of sight
with the greatest ease. It was a long time before
I saw him again. Nowhere is the Le Conte
thrasher plentiful, and I watched carefully
through many seasons before I really felt I
knew this wary bird.

His shyness is of an exaggerated type. He
tries always by every possible means to avoid
you and with his powers of running and dodg-
ing he generally is successful. Collectors tell me
that he is one of the most difficult of all birds
to shoot and that the only way for the gunner
to get him is literally to shoot while on the run.

Though rather rare birds, the Le Conte
thrashers are always about in greater numbers

194 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

than you are aware of. About the only way to
make a census with any proximity to satisfac-
tion is to count the nests of the season. I have
traveled for days and have seen but one or two
of these thrashers about when I well knew by
signs that there were many more in the vicinity.

They generally keep pretty well to the brush-
tangled washes where some protection is offered
them from intruders. If there is a field of cholla
cactus in the vicinity, you may be sure that they
have sought it out as the most suitable place
for the nest. They will occasionally build in
palo verde trees, but the cactuses are always
their first choice as building-sites.

The nests are generally inconspicuously
placed in the center of the thickly spined,
branching tops of the cactuses and consist of
rather coarse thorny twigs. They are easily
distinguished from the nests of the cactus wrens
by their open tops. The inside is generally lined
by vegetable wool gathered from a small woolly
plant, known as filago.

The female, like most of the thrashers and
like the wren-tit of the foothills, is a close sitter,
and seldom leaves the nest until the intruder is

NEST OF THE LE CONTE THRASHER

THE LE CONTE THRASHER 195

right upon her. And then when she goes she
leaves as silently as a mouse with never a word
of protest or the faintest cry to show any sign
of alarm. She simply slips over the back of the
nest and is gone.

Mr. French Gilman, of Banning, California,
because of his long residence on the desert and
his intelligent interest in birds, is, perhaps,
better acquainted with the habits and manner-
isms of the Le Conte thrasher than are most
Western birdmen. With his permission I am
here appending in effect his words concerning
the call notes and singing habits in general of
this hermit bird:

“My introduction to this interesting bird,
Toxostoma lecontet, was during the summer
of 1882 when with his whistling note he con-
firmed my earlier belief in ghosts. In a mes-
quite and creosote bush thicket at Whitewater
Ranch on the Colorado Desert was buried a
Mexican horsethief who had died with his boots
on. Near this thicket I frequently wandered,
though it was said to be haunted. On several
occasions a whistle sent me to the ranch house
to see what was wanted, but when I got there it

196 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

was always to find that no one had whistled.
This puzzled me until I found the noise came
from the thicket, and of course it must be the
Mexican ghost. This I believed until, a few
days later, accident revealed to me the real
whistler, a Le Conte thrasher. The note of the
thrasher can be mistaken for that of no other
bird. It resembles closely the whistle a man
employs in calling a dog —short with rising
inflection at the end. So striking is the resem-
blance that it is nearly impossible to distinguish
one from the other. The calls are uttered at
intervals of about a minute, when the bird is in
the mood, and are easily imitated. If the imi-
tation is accurate, the bird will continue answer-
ing for a long time, but care must be taken not
to repeat the whistle too rapidly or he sees
through the deception. In addition to the call
note he has a very attractive song which re-
sembles that of an uneducated mocking-bird,
though fuller and richer and pitched in a higher
key.

“The only drawback to the song is its infre-
quency, even when the birds are most abundant.
You may be in their midst all day and see sev-

THE LE CONTE THRASHER 107

eral pairs, but if one song rewards you it may be
counted as a red-letter day. At least this has
been my experience of nine years in particular.
For some time I doubted the statement made
by some writers that the Le Conte thrasher was
a fine singer, but I was finally shown by the bird
himself. While standing one evening on a high-
drifted hill of white sand about two miles west
of the rim of the ancient Salton Sea, I heard the
sweet strains of a new bird song and began to
look for the singer. I expected to find a mock-
ing-bird whose individuality had been devel-
oped by the desert solitudes and who had
learned a new song. On an adjoining sand-
hill, perched on the exposed tip of a sand-
buried mesquite, I saw the singer — a Le Conte
thrasher. Perhaps environment enhanced the
music, for the spot was a most lonesome, for-
saken one, near an ancient Indian encampment
and burial-ground, but I have heard no sweeter
bird song and the memory still lingers. Since
then I have heard the song a few times, but not
oftener than once or twice a year, though I have
frequently been among the birds. Not only do
they seldom sing, but the whistling call note is

198 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

not often heard. They appear to be silent,
unsociable creatures, never more than a pair
being found together, unless a brood of young
birds and parents, and then only until the
former can shift for themselves.”

THE GNATCATCHERS AND VERDINS

THE GNATCATCHERS AND VERDINS
(Polioptila plumbea and Auriparus flaviceps)

THE plumbeous (lead-colored) gnatcatchers,
though not the smallest of the desert bird
pygmies, are surely its noisiest scolders. Their
raspish song, anything but musical, is uttered
with such frequency and in such a determined
and defiant tone that it always sounds as if
these midget birds were berating and throwing
challenges to everybody in the neighborhood.
With never a minute for idleness they go
working their way from bush to bush, turning
this way and that, their restless tails all the
time wagging in unison with their fidgety bod-
ies. They hunt in pairs; one, generally the
male, takes the lead and the other follows close
by. As they move rapidly about, scolding and
chattering and scanning the bushes for insect
eggs, small caterpillars, and beetles, they re-
mind us of those talkative and active moun-
tain birds, the chickadees, except in that they
are not quite so adept as the chickadees at

202 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

turning upside down on the branches. Evi-
dently they always have a great deal to talk
over among themselves about the adventures
of the day, for they are never still a minute.
I have known them to utter four different notes
in half as many minutes, each with its peculiar
variations and distinct individuality and doubt-
less the expression of strong emotional states.
This afternoon, while walking under a large
palo verde tree, I found a gnatcatcher cleaning
mites from his feathered coat. Judged by his
motions, he had plenty of them. With a be-
wildering rapidity of movement, he spread his
wings outward and backward and_ brushed
them over the top of his tail, and then bill-
scratched his breast and underparts. Hardly
had he begun this before he was scratching his
neck and head parts with his feet. This billing
and scratching and brushing were kept up
fully fifteen minutes with scarcely a minute for
rest. So much occupied was his mind with his
task that he barely noticed my presence at all.
It is always interesting to catch birds at
‘ such odd times when they are doing little things
like this, for one then gets a peep into a side

GNATCATCHERS AND VERDINS 203

of their lives which helps much in interpreting
their real! nature. This little fellow’s problem
was very real to him, as was shown by the vigor
with which he attacked its solving. A sparrow
having the same difficulties would doubtless
have taken care of them in quite a different
manner,

The plumbeous gnatcatchers have a geo-
graphical range that is very definitely defined.
They are found more or less all the year through-
out the deserts of southeastern California, but
particularly in the Lower Sonoran Life-Zone of
the Colorado Desert as far west as the San
Gorgonio Pass region, where they are displaced
by the western and black-tailed gnatcatchers.
The plumbeous gnatcatchers are very jealous
of the territory which Nature has allotted them,
and with zeal they guard it against all en-
croachments on the part of the western and
black-tailed species. Occasionally one will see
a pair of black-tails on plumbeous territory, but
the trespassers are few, for they receive rough
handling and are hustled out of the region in a
hurry. This is especially true at nesting-time.
Both species of gnatcatchers are good scrappers,

204 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

and it is always an exciting time when they
meet at the cross-trails and settle their disputes
in beaky arguments. They are always noisy
birds, but at such times a pandemonium of
screechy, quarrelsome bird notes is set loose
upon the air. The plumbeous is generally the
aggressor and he drives out his rival at any
cost of feathers.

This pugnaciousness of the plumbeous gnat-
catcher is manifest toward all birds when the
occasion arises to protect his rights. Woe be to
the bird, even though he be a large one, that
shows himself too familiar and aggressive a
visitor in the mesquite and cat’s-claw bushes
where the plumbeous gnatcatchers have built
their nest.

There is another tiny bird, the verdin, which
lives in the same region and which is of the
same small size, nervous temperament, and
restlessness as the gnatcatcher. There are good
chances that the novice will confuse the two
birds unless some attention is given to learning
the field marks which distinguish them. Both
are birds with grayish or lead-colored backs
and fluffy, lighter underparts. The male ver-

GNATCATCHERS AND VERDINS 205

dins, with their bright olive-green crowns and
yellow heads, need never be mistaken for any
dull-colored gnatcatcher; but the female verdin
is not so easily distinguished. The yellow and
green of her coat is restricted to two small
patches, one on the head and one on the neck
just beneath the bill, and the colors are almost
always of so dull a hue as to be hardly seen
when the bird is in motion.

A good time to become familiar with the
verdins is during the breeding-season; for you
will then learn to associate them with the large
retort-shaped nests which they place in the
wild lavender, mesquite, and other thorny
bushes, and you will see both male and female
together, making it possible to compare their
markings. Without making any protest or
appearing much disturbed, the birds will let
you sit for hours under the nest while they
come and go about their business.

The nests are always easy to locate, for they
are large and conspicuous. Those that I have
found on the Colorado Desert were almost
always located in the upper crotches of the
desert lavender bushes which grow so plenti-

206 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

fully along the gravelly washes and in the
cafion bottoms. On the Mohave Desert, where
the Hyptis (the correct name for the so-called
wild lavender) does not grow so plentifully,
the nests are placed in the mesquite and cat’s-
claw bushes. There are generally two nests
built very close together or in the same bush.
This pairing of nests is easy to account for
when we learn that the verdins, like the cafion
wrens, build roosting- as well as breeding-nests.
The larger nest is the one built and occupied
by the female for nesting-purposes, while the
smaller is built by the male and is for his sole
use as sleeping-quarters. After the young have
been reared, the female uses her nest for the
same purpose. If you have any doubt concern-
ing the occupancy of the nests at night, just
gently thrust your finger into the hole at the
end of the bird-home some evening or early
morning, and feel what a peck you will get
from the tiny bird tenant inside.

The verdins’ appreciation of economy has
induced them whenever possible to utilize the
material of old nests in the reconstruction of
new ones. Last winter I took down an unoccu-

LAaT AHL LY NGAS ST AONVYLNG SELL
HSN AWD WHISVYHL ALNOD AT ONNOA
“S.LVO-V NI NIGUHA AHL JO USHX ici ———

GNATCATCHERS AND VERDINS 207

pied nest of the season and placed it up under
the eaves of my house where it served as a
decorative feature. When spring came the
verdins (evidently the same pair that had built
it in the spring of the year before) spied it out
and proceeded without my permission to tear
it to pieces bit by bit and make it into a new
home for themselves. As though it were a kind
of protest against my ever having removed it
from its old place in the lavender bush, they
took every twig of it back there and made the
nest in the same branch from which I had
taken it. When this nest was done, it was
almost as big as my head. So many feathers
and leaves were put inside for lining that one
would have thought there would have been no
room for anything else; indeed, so many feath-
ers were protruding from the small opening at
the end that the fat nest looked as if it were
going to burst. If any baby birds that after-
wards occupied it were not comfortable, it was
because they had crowded quarters and not
because their bed was not soft enough.

When I came back to the desert in the
autumn I found these same birds still holding

208 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

possession of this nest and the roosting-nest
built beside it soon after. They were then
getting ready for winter and were thoroughly
renovating and relining their old domiciles of
spring. Frequent trips were made to a gully
several hundred yards away, and there from
some source — I venture to say from some old
nest — great numbers of feathers and sticks
were secured. By utilizing old material the
birds were able to save themselves much labor
and were able to reconstruct the nests in a
remarkably short time. As far as I could see,
the remade nests looked as good as the new
ones made from fresh materials in the spring
season.

Generally but one bird was about working at
a time. When bringing in material the female
verdin always hesitatingly paused a moment
underneath a twig just beneath the nest before
going inside. Having gone in and fixed in its
proper place the stick or feather she had se-
cured, she flew to a twig which was near by and
spent a second or two boasting of her accom-
plishment in chippering song.

THE DESERT LYNX

THE DESERT LYNX
(Lynx eremicus)

WILD caTs or desert lynxes are plentifully
found over almost the whole desert region of
the Southwest. They are especially abundant
along the western borders of the desert, where
the brushy foothills of the high mountain ranges
afford them abundant shelter and a good supply
of food. They are such shy and secretive ani-
mals that were it not for their occasional
depredations upon the fowl yards of settlers,
and their getting into traps set for them by
trappers, we should scarcely ever know they
were about. They are out very little in the day-
time, preferring to do their hunting during the
early evening and night hours. I was, some
months ago, camping near a water-hole on the
Colorado Desert, and every evening at dusk I
observed a mother lynx coming down onto the
little grass plot near the spring. As long as I
was perfectly quiet, she would sit still and watch
me, but the moment I made a sudden move she

212. DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

was off into the arrowweed in an instant. By
following her trails, I was led into a rocky gorge
near by where J found her den, and in it were
three kittens about one third grown. I must
confess that, when I first approached, it was
with much hesitancy, for a wild cat is not a
pleasant animal to meet in combat. And here
was a mother with young! To my surprise she
became frightened and abandoned the den
almost as soon as she saw me, and I was left
to see the kittens alone. They were pretty
little things, really much more like domestic
kittens than I had imagined. There was a
stockiness of build, a bigness of head, and
enormity of padded paws, however, that no
tame kitten ever possessed. Furthermore, there
was no long tail—only a stump; the jowl
whiskers, if such you may call the heavy long
hair-tufts beneath the jaw, were well devel-
oped, and the ears were tufted by fine pencils
of black hair. As I approached the kittens they
gave a coarse ‘‘mew,’’ but very soon showed
their distrust by spitting at me. They were
going to take no chance with this new creature
who had looked down upon them in their home,

THE DESERT LYNX 213

and they leaped from the nest and past me
into the open with a quickness that startled me.
There was probably a family reunion some-
where out in the brush that night, but I never
had a chance to know of it, for the mother
never led her kittens back to the old den again.
One such intrusion was enough for her.

The young begin eating meat without evil
consequences very early, probably within a few
weeks after birth. Small animals and birds
are brought in, torn to pieces by the mother,
and fed to them. Growth under these circum-
stances is very rapid, and it is not long before
the young cats are able to hunt for themselves.
Like the domestic kittens they are very play-
ful and when taken soon after birth manifest
a great affection for their captor if he is at all
kind to them. They will not tolerate strangers,
however, and will spit and jump about fero-
ciously in the cage and show the greatest of
uneasiness.

Wild cats manifest the greatest antipathy
to their domestic cousins; also toward dogs.
A man whom I met at the head of Coyote
Cajfion, in Riverside County, California, found

214 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

it necessary to keep the closest watch on his
tame cat, especially at night. To ensure her a
safe retreat he had a hole cut in the door of his
house just large enough for her to pass through,
but too small for the lynxes. The dog when
annoyed sought shelter up in the attic of the
small shanty, a crude stairway leading up to
the door outside affording him a means of
getting up. This man had lost several cats in
the past and his small dog had had enough
scratches to make him scramble upstairs to
the attic upon the first good hiss from a wild cat.

At Indian Springs Ranch, in Southwestern
Nevada, a desert lynx had a few days before my
arrival played havoc with a whole flock of
domestic fowls, killing in all some twenty
blooded chickens — and this in one night. The
animal had been crawling over the roof of the
rather poorly constructed coop and unluckily
fell through the rotted shingles plump into the
midst of the whole pen of roosting fowls.
Frightened, no doubt, and angry because he
could not find his way out, he killed every
hen within reach. The proprietor of the ranch
found him still imprisoned next morning, and a

THE DESERT LYNX 215

wild-cat hide now lies stretched on the floor of
the house.

Lynxes live largely on birds and such small
mammals as they can overpower. These they
catch by approaching them stealthily and then
at the opportune moment leaping upon them.
Fowls are taken occasionally, but no one need
lose chickens if he will see to it that the pens
are tight and strongly made.

THE DESERT WHITE-CROWNED
SPARROW

THE DESERT WHITE-CROWNED
SPARROW

(Zonotrichia leucophrys intermedia)

OcTOBER 15. Now that the desert white-crowns
have returned, and we hear their earnest and
cheerful songs from almost every weed and
brush tangle, we know that autumn days have
come for good. With the arrival of the warm
spring days they left us, and all summer they
have been foraging in far Northern meadows
and busying themselves with the important
work of rearing families. Since these nursery
duties are over, they are glad to be back again
to the warm desert lowlands, even though for a
little while they must be content with the
scant fare that is left for them. Scarcely any-
thing has been growing all summer and the
small crop of seeds which ripened in early
spring has largely been buried by the winds or
picked up by the resident birds before the flocks
of white-crowns and chipping sparrows arrived.

The desert sparrows seem to know that if

220 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

they are going to get anything to eat they
must earn it by their own diligent efforts. In
little groups they sally from one weed patch to
another, and industriously scratch for every
mite of food that is left. They seem to spend a
good deal less time than most of the birds in
aimless flights or in sitting around in the sun-
shine doing nothing. Like the European peas-
ants they sing as they work and pass the days
merrily even though they must be filled with
arduous labors.

The music of these gleeful birds is the cheeri-
est and most constant song of winter and lends
brightness to many a dull and monotonous day.
They are particularly songful in the evening at
about the time when they are going to roost.

Unhappily there is little of particular interest
to write about these birds for, while they are
well worth knowing and always are about in
greatest numbers, they belong to those general-
ized types of birds with few mannerisms that
are noticeably unusual. Perhaps we may say
of them, as Lincoln said of the common people:
the Lord must love them because he made so
many of them.

THE BLACK-TAILED HARE

THE BLACK-TAILED HARE
(Lepus californicus deserticola)

Amonc the smaller animal folk of the arid
Southwest, the black-tailed hare or desert jack
rabbit, is the paragon of racers. His only rival
is the desert sand-lapper, that swift-footed
lizard that seems to run over ground as birds
fly through air. The coyote often attempts to
outrun the hare and sometimes overtakes him,
but more often this green-eyed rogue catches
his “jack” through strategy rather than by
mere swiftness of foot. The coyote is wise and
sagacious enough to know that if two of his kind
will codperate in the hunt they can take ad-
vantage of the rabbit’s tacking habits and get
him without long chases. The first one chases
up the hare, and the second places himself in
such a position that when the rabbit changes
his course he runs square into the jaws of the
waiting coyote.

Yesterday, while out with the donkeys to
visit an old Indian cave, I was suddenly startled

224 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

by a jack rabbit who ran across the trail. His
eyes were wild with terror. Hardly had he
passed when hot upon his heels came a murder-
bent coyote with greedy jaws gaping wide
ready to grasp his victim. So close was he on
the chase that the two or three forward steps
which I took, between the time I saw the rabbit
and noticed the coyote, placed me between the
two, and the coyote found it difficult to stop
short enough to prevent himself from dash-
ing right into me. As it was, he stumbled and
almost threw himself over backwards in the
efforts to slacken his pace. As soon as he re-
covered himself, he sneakingly ran off to one
side, sat down on his tail, and, with his tongue
hanging from between his panting jaws, divided
his attention between me and the escaping
rabbit, looking first reproachfully and scorn-
fully at me and then curiously, longingly, and
with comical regret at his departing dinner.
He was, no doubt, wondering, like men who
have suddenly lost long-sought fortunes, how
it had all happened so quickly. The rabbit was
fully aware of his new chance for life and made
away as fast as his strong, lanky limbs would

THE BLACK-TAILED HARE = 225

carry him. Had I not been there and inter-
cepted the coyote, another instant would have
witnessed the poor rabbit being torn to shreds
by those cruel canine teeth.

I have often wondered how it would seem to
be thus called upon to flee for one’s life at a
moment’s notice with the unhappy and horrible
prospect of being eaten alive if one’s prowess as
a runner was not equal to the exigency. There
is no doubt but that not only rabbits but nearly
all smaller mammals are almost daily called
upon to meet just such issues. How hard their
lot must be in comparison with that of the
super-mammal, man, who through his wisdom
and invention has found almost complete free-
dom from such dangers! Rabbits seem to have
about the hardest lot of all the small mammals
that roam the fields; for the number of their
natural enemies is almost legion. Owls, hawks,
snakes, coyotes, wild cats, golden eagles, and
man, all crave their tender flesh and thirst for
their sweet, warm blood; and were it not for the
extraordinary fecundity of these rodents they
would long ago have become extinct. Nature,
solicitous for the rabbits’ preservation, or else

226 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

desirous that her other wild children should
have plenty of sport and good food, has decreed
that there should always be many young to re-
place the old ones who have fallen prey to the
gunners, rapacious birds and beasts.

This long-eared rodent of our sketch is ex-
ceptionally easy to distinguish from other rab-
bits of his range by the black tail which he
carries compressed against his rump. His light
weight, thin body, and exceptionally long legs
are characters which separate him from the
short-bodied bunnies or cottontails.

When he is hopping about feeding or travel-
ing at ordinary speeds, the long membraneous
ears are carried erect, but when the hare is
traveling at high speed the air pressure induced
forces them to lie back. The black-tailed rabbit
evidently realizes what conspicuous appendages
his jet-tipped ears are, and when trying to con-
ceal himself in the open he crouches low on the
sand and lays the ears well back. As soon as he
thinks it safe he gets into the brush, rises up
on his haunches, and without fear of detection
erects his ears and tests every wave of sound
that comes his way.

THE BLACK-TAILED HARE = 227

These rabbits are out foraging both during
the day and at night, but they are the more
active in the dark. Much of the time during the
day they remain hidden in pocket-like shelters
made in the brush. These ‘‘forms,”’ as they are
called, are about the rabbits’ only protection
against bad weather, and were it not for their
heavy, furry winter coats they would spend
many days in discomfort. The cottontails are
wise enough to seek shelter in holes.

When the rabbits go foraging, they are not
fastidious eaters. The bitter-barked creosote
bush and the Bigelow’s cactus are among the
few plants of the desert immune from their
attack. Practically all other trees, shrubs, and
herbs are subject to their nibbles. Even the
greater number of cactuses with their sharp
spines are robbed of their juicy outer parts.
Barrel cactuses, those spine-protected natural
reservoirs of the desert, are especially sought
out. How the tender rabbit noses are able with
impunity to be thrust in between the rigid,
thick-set spines is a mystery that is still to be
explained. I have often found on the dry, rocky
mesas, great numbers of the bisnagas, or barrel

228 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT.

cactuses, completely girdled, the pulp-meat
having been gouged out an inch of more deep
all around. Around the base of each was a ring
of excreta, leaving no doubt as to who the
nibblers were. The desert rabbits seldom drink,
but depend almost wholly for water on such
foods. During the summer months their body
excretions are reduced to the lowest minimum,
and even though they can get to succulent food
supplies only occasionally, they suffer little from
thirst. A rabbit never perspires in the ordinary
sense of the term in so far as I can learn. The
sweat glands which function actively are very
few and are probably confined to small areas of
the skin.

The young come in April or May — born
with eyes wide open and with bodies well
clothed with hair. No days of helplessness are
waiting for them. They stand ready to be off
almost as soon as they see the world. Within a
few weeks after birth these little fellows are
showing much independence, getting around at
a lively clip and indiscreetly giving hostages to
fortune by exposing themselves to every enemy
that may lie in wait for them.

THE BLACK-TAILED HARE 229

At times rabbits become so plentiful that
they are seen almost everywhere in the open
country, and then after this there may come
years when they seem to have in large part dis-
appeared. Many old prospectors and ranchmen
will tell you that this is because food is scarce
and that the rabbits have gone to better feed-
ing-grounds. This is an error. While food de-
ficiency may have something to do with the
ability of great numbers of rabbits to subsist in
any region, yet their scarcity at certain periods
cannot be accounted for wholly on this basis.
These rodents are subject to several contagious
maladies which at times so reduce their num-
bers that it would seem there were scarcely
enough healthy ones left to replenish their kind.
But those that survive manage to repopulate
the fields in a remarkably short time, and the
ranchers are all too soon complaining about
“too many jack rabbits” again.

The water blisters often found on hares are
due to the presence of the larval form of a
tapeworm. The late Dr. Katherine Brandegee
worked out the life-history of this parasite, and
I give her words concerning it:

230 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

““Swellings known to hunters as ‘water boils’
are found in a very considerable proportion of
hares. So far as I have observed, they do not
occur in the smaller species, the brush rabbit
and the cottontail, of which I have examined
several hundred specimens... .

‘“‘Tapeworms are exceedingly common, most
animals harboring one or more, either in the
perfect or larval state, but they are rare in the
reptiles. Their life-history is tolerably well
known; those which belong properly to the
carnivora pass their larval stage in the flesh of
some herbivorous animal which is the natural
prey to its future host.

“The natural hosts of the cenurus [tape-
worm] of the hare are probably the dog and the
wolf. A hare badly infested with cenurus be-
comes swollen and deformed, and as the loins
and thighs are attacked by preference his
powers of locomotion are seriously impaired.
In this condition he falls an easy prey to his
hereditary foe, the coyote.

“The coyote swallows not only the hare, but
its ten thousand contained larve, a circumstance
which would undoubtedly give his victim a

THE BLACK-TAILED HARE 231

feeling of malicious joy, if he were in a condi-
tion to know anything at all about it. The
larve are set free in the stomach of the coyote
by digestion of the vesicle that surrounds them,
and a certain proportion succeed in attaching
themselves by their hooks and suckers to the
walls of the small intestine; fortunately only a
very small proportion. Their way is beset with
dangers, and their extraordinary fecundity is
calculated in proportion to their chances of
safety. The tapeworm is a colony of hermaph-
rodites, each joint of which is a sexually com-
plete animal, male and female, containing
thousands of eggs. It reaches maturity in about
six weeks, after which period the lower joints,
and numerous free eggs, are discharged at each
evacuation and deposited upon the ground,
weeds, or grass.

“The eggs are so small as to be quite invisi-
ble to the unaided eye, and being furnished
with a thick envelope have considerable tenac-
ity of life. The hare swallows the eggs, either
by feeding upon the grass and weeds or by
drinking from pools of water into which they
have been washed. In the stomach the thick

232 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

envelope is digested, the contained embryo is
set free, and immediately starts for its pre-
destined resting-place. This microscopic em-
bryo is furnished with six hooklets by means of
which it penetrates the walls of the intestine
and embeds itself in the muscular tissue. Here
it ceases to move, its hooklets fall off, and it
slowly develops into a polycephalos [many-
headed] vesicle.” 3

1 Zoe, vol. I.

CALLISAURUS, THE GRIDIRON-TAILED
LIZARD

CALLISAURUS, THE GRIDIRON-TAILED
LIZARD

(Callisaurus ventralis)

“SPEEDING like greased lightning” is hardly
a figurative expression when applied to that
active and agile saurian, the gridiron-tailed
lizard. Starting off at full speed, with his black
banded tail held in air “as if afraid to let it
touch the hot earth,” he scoots across the sand
as if ‘“‘shot from a cannon.’”’ None of our desert
lizards can move so fast nor can any run so far
without fatigue. To arouse one of these ‘‘sand-
lappers” from his seeming lethargy while at
rest, and get him going at full speed in front
of you, is an act always hugely productive of
pleasure. Generally they move in great circles,
but when on long, open stretches, where there
is scarcely trace of vegetation behind which to
hide, they run a straight course. Then it is that
you see them racing at their best. Some ob-
servers have ventured to assert that these swift
runners when excited will, in their anxiety for

236 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

speed, rear their bodies upright and proceed on
their hind limbs like bipeds. When I was telling
this to Loco Tom at Stovepipe Springs, he
matched it with this yet greater absurd state-
ment: ‘‘Why, up here these lizards run so fast
on hot days that they have to stop every once
in a while, turn over on their backs, and put
their feet up in the air to cool them off in the
wind.”

It has always been a puzzle to me to explain
how these swift-moving creatures can so easily
find a hole for refuge while in movement. When
going at top speed they can “spot’’ a burrow
and suddenly duck into it as if they had known
it was there all the while. Such is their momen-
tum that you cannot see how by any possible
means they can keep from shooting straight
over the abrupt hollow.

When at rest their heads and shoulders are
held up high in such a position as to favor care-
ful observation and alertness. The pelvis and
the tail rest flat upon the ground. The knees of
the rear legs stand out at right angles from the
body and are ‘‘elevated to such a degree that
they nearly reach the plane of the back.” This

CALLISAURUS 237

position makes it possible for them to spring
into action at a moment’s notice. When ready
to run, the whole body is well elevated, the tail
flung up over the back, and away they go —
mere streaks of white on the silver sand.

While on the Ralston Desert of Nevada I saw
a male and a female making most peculiar and
striking flirtations to one another, the two
waltzing back and forth before each other in
amorous antics much as mocking-birds are
wont to do during the mating season. Until I
came almost upon them they seemed so en-
wrapped in their wooings and waltzings that
they did not notice my approach in the least.
The movements were exceedingly graceful and
full of weird rhythm.

These lizards are carnivores of a big appetite,
and all sorts of tiny creatures, from insects to
reptiles, fall victims to their voracity. It is
common enough practice for them to turn
cannibals and eat their own offspring — rather
despicable business, this eating of one’s own
children, but possibly considered good form in
reptiledom. We are glad to learn that at least
a part of their food is of a vegetable nature —

238 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

sometimes half their sustenance comes from
buds and foliage.

The gridiron-tailed lizard has received its
common name because of the broad black bands
found on the underside of the tail, which are so
conspicuous when this appendage is reared in
flight. This interesting lizard is found quite
uniformly distributed over the sandy plains and
gravelly washes of both the Colorado and the
Mohave Deserts of California; also in western
Nevada and southern Utah, where it is one of
the most abundant lizards of the region. Dur-
ing winter it is dormant,

SAUROMALUS, THE CHUCKWALLA

SAUROMALUS, THE CHUCKWALLA
(Sauromalus ater)

THIS morning ‘‘old man chuckwalla” came out
of his winter hiding looking as wrinkled and
shriveled as a withered apple. His black beady
skin hung on him in folds like the hide of an old
elephant, and, as he clumsily clambered upon a
big flat red rock and blinked his sleepy eyes in
the sun, he appeared to have emerged from his
winter torpor with only woe as his portion and
without a sign to show that he could appreciate
the new awakening spirit of spring. The brown-
shouldered lizards had been sporting about
playing tag with one another in the sun for over
a month or more, the rock wrens had been
making love flirtations for a fortnight. Evena
few hairy caterpillars had ventured forth to
feed days ago, risking being gobbled up by the
voracious black-throated sparrows. The chuck-
walla comes forth among the most belated of
all the season’s guests.

But wait — there is good reason for his tardi-
ness. He, you must remember, is a feeder on

242 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

tender buds and blossoms, and why should he
come to the feast before it is set? Many of the
lizards can live on insects, but he must wait
until the flowers have unfurled, and this is
usually somewhat advanced in the season’s
cycle. The elixir vite that brings rejuvenescence
to the wrinkled body is found in the petals of
the flowers that come with the suns of March.
To arrive before would be to come to an empty
table. Homely, clumsy, stolid, unfinished-look-
ing, and awkward of limb, yet he is the daintiest
of feeders — and behind those sleepy eyes lies
wisdom.

Not to mention the Gila Monster, the chuck-
walla is our largest iguanid lizard, a full-grown
individual attaining a length of eighteen inches.
The general coloration of the body is brownish
black or gray with darker cross-bars, these
latter being most clearly defined in young speci-
mens. The blunt tail is usually mottled or
marbled with white. In rare instances it is en-
tirely white. ‘It is a curious fact, however,”
says Dr. Merriam, ‘‘that the distinctness — or
even the presence or absence — of these cross-
bars, especially on the tail, is changeable in the

THE CHUCKWALLA 243

same individual, and apparently dependent on
the intensity of light to which the animal is
exposed.”

Every part of the body is built for a purpose.
Though it appears queer in form, yet a study of
it will reveal that the chuckwalla is encumbered
with none of those useless and over-exaggerated
specialized structures which have so often
marked senescence among reptiles. The clumsy,
fat, blunt tail is his chief weapon of defense,
and he can flop it vigorously when occasion
demands that he use it. The smart blows he
gives cause all his enemies to take notice of him.
He looks lazy and stupid, but approach him and
see how quickly his short, stubby limbs enable
him to drop out of sight and into a place of
safety. The flat body makes it possible for him
to squeeze himself into extremely narrow cracks
in the rocks, and because of his loose, elastic
skin he is able to ;inflate himself so tightly that
not the strongest man can pull him out from
his place of safety. Rather will he surrender his
tail to Cerberus than give up his body to his
enemy. The lizard-eating Indians, the Sho-
shones, Cahuillas, and their near cousins the

244 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

Piutes, however, got the better of him; for they
were accustomed to carry with them a sharp-
pointed, hooked stick, and when they saw a
chuckwalla which they wanted for food they
punctured his inflated hide, and, against his
will, pulled him out of his retreat.

The Indians prepared chuckwallas for eating
by roasting them over a bed of coals. There is
no reason to believe that the white flesh is not
palatable.

Chuckwallas are rupestrine lizards generally
living around dark rocks, such as iron-stained
granites or lavas. They are frequent in almost
all the lower desert ranges from southwestern
Utah and southern Nevada westward to the
Death Valley region and southward to Lower
California.

Much of interest concerning the life-history
of this remarkable lizard awaits some patient
observer who will watch chuckwallas, not in a
cage, but in their native home. Who will tell
us the age they attain? Where do they lay
their eggs? What are their breeding habits?

THE SIDEWINDER

THE SIDEWINDER
(Crotalus cerastes) -

HE is the most vicious in appearance, most un-
usual in habit, and most feared by man of all
the reptiles of the desert. He is so tiny that he
seems made for a plaything, yet there is no man
who is not ready to reckon him a beast of pro-
portions when the measure of horribleness is
applied and not the rule of girth or length. His
hand is against every creature: he is no falsifier:
he carries no mark of innocent countenance to
bespeak friendliness where none exists. The
green glares of cruelty are in his eyes and the
hornlike scales above them give him the malig-
nant aspect that befits his splenetic and ugly
temper. His actions are quick, his aim is sure,
and demonlike he prowls about in the darkness
of night, by day lurking beneath bushes where
his enemies cannot see him, but where he can
strike the passer-by to advantage. This is the
sidewinder — pygmy rattlesnake of the desert
sands,

248 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

The outstanding feature of uniqueness which
readily separates this from all other rattle-
snakes, and which gives to the sidewinder his
vernacular name, is his peculiar mode of pro-
gression. Instead of moving forward in the
manner of ordinary snakes, he moves away
sidewise, keeping in the meantime his broadside
always toward the observer — a motion which
is especially advantageous in carrying him over
the sands. It is a somewhat looping movement
and the tracks which are left in the sands are
peculiarly different from those of all other
rattlesnakes, being not continuous, but dis-
jointed, and resembling a series of colonial _//’s,
each separated by a space of three or four
inches. Sidewinders apparently have a special
fondness for crawling along in wagon tracks,
and it is here where I have most often noticed
the peculiar marks.

All other rattlesnakes must coil at least to
some extent before they strike, but this erratic
snake strikes ‘‘on the run,” securing leverage
for his head by arching the neck, after the fash-
ion of aswan. This gives him an unmeasurable
advantage over his other crotaline cousins and

THE SIDEWINDER, OR HORNED RATTLESNAKE

THE SIDEWINDER 249

heightens greatly his danger to man; for he is
always ready to attack the moment he is ap-
proached.

The average length of an adult sidewinder is
about fifteen inches. His girth is about equal
to that of a man’s middle finger but may be
greater if food has recently been taken. The
dorsal ground color of white and the bands of
brownish on his body give him a high degree of
protection on the gray granitic sands on which
Nature intended he should live.

As briefly stated before, sidewinders are
almost wholly a night-roving species, doing
most of their hunting under cover of darkness
— the time when the kangaroo rats and wild
mice, their chief fare, are most active and most
plentifully found. During the day, especially
in summer, they generally seek the shelter of
rock crevices or hide under bushes where they
can avoid the fierce heat. To expose themselves
long to the sun on a desert day, when it is hot
enough to: cook eggs in the sand, would be to
invite death. Five to ten minutes’ exposure on
the superheated sand in the glaring sun rays
of midsummer is sufficient to kill. Generally,

250 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

when found during the day, they are seen
wound tightly about the bases of shrubs or
tightly coiled up in a compact little mat or pad
in the shade. If able to find some slight de-
pression, they curl up in that, quite often utiliz-
ing the hoofmarks made by cattle. These their
coiled forms just about fit.

As soon as the sun goes down, they begin to
wander abroad upon the warm sands. Walking
along the railroad tracks at this time of day I
have often found them stretched along the
flange of the hot rails absorbing the heat from
the fast radiating steel. Because of the side-
winder’s nocturnal habits I have never fancied
desert travel by night in summer, especially
when afoot. All experienced desert travelers
feel much the same as I do in so far as I can
learn. The rattle of this snake is small and
seldom used, and there is nothing to warn one
of its presence. The great Mammoth Wash
at its southeastern end of the Salton Sink is a
place where sidewinders are especially abun-
dant, and it has a most evil reputation even
among the oldest “‘desert rats,” as the veteran
prospectors are called. ‘They avoid traveling

THE SIDEWINDER 251

across it at night in summer whenever possible,
and if it is absolutely necessary to go over it
they all resolve in most solemn terms ‘‘to go
straight through and not stop to camp once.”
Who enjoys a rattlesnake crawling over one’s
covers at night?

One evening in late May, while a friend and
myself were sitting on a rock quietly munching
a crust, I espied a moving object near one of
our bed-rolls. Watching it more closely I no-
ticed that it was a small serpent crawling into
the blankets. Realizing that it might be a
dangerous reptile, I took a near-by stick in my
hand and went up and carefully unrolled the
bedding. As I had suspected, there lay a little
sidewinder. I do not like to think of what
might have happened had my eyes not detected
in the semi-darkness the snake moving into his
hiding. I cannot too strongly urge my readers
when camping on the desert in late spring and
summer always to make up their beds anew
each evening just before retiring; for not only
rattlesnakes, but such other unpleasant visitors
as centipedes, vinegaroons, and scorpions may
have found a hiding-place between the covers

252 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

since last they were used. Furthermore, I think
it shows good judgment to sleep off the ground
on a cot swinging from a tree if possible, as soon
as the warm nights begin. There is no use tak-
ing chances.

There is abroad a colossally absurd notion
that rattlesnakes are always found in pairs, and
that if you kill one the other will soon seek its
mate. It is quite possible that during the spring
months, that is, the mating season, they may
occasionally be found near to one another, but
this pairing is only temporary and during the
remainder of the year individuals wander soli-
tarily.

All rattlesnakes are ovoviviparous; that is,
they hatch their eggs before they are laid. The
egg, with its yolk, white, and thin, flexible,
membraneous shell, is formed within the ovi-
duct of the female, but it never leaves the body.
Hence the young are born alive.

Crotalus cerastes, the horned rattlesnake, or
sidewinder, is the most characteristic snake of
the Lower Sonoran Desert areas of the Great
Basin — southeastern California to southern
Nevada, southwestern Utah and Arizona. In

THE SIDEWINDER 253

general it confines itself to the sandy and grav-
elly expanses, leaving the higher and more
rocky desert mountain regions to be occupied
by the tiger and the pallid rattlesnake.

TESTUDO, THE DESERT TORTOISE

TESTUDO, THE DESERT TORTOISE
(Gopherus agassizit)
IT is interesting to imagine the frame of mind
of those early Western travelers who, wholly
ignorant of the existence of dry-land tortoises,
espied for the first time these queer turtle-like
creatures shuffling clumsily across their trail.
We can almost see them “glowing” like old
Tam, himself, ‘‘amazed and curious,” and
rubbing their eyes twice, then once again, to
make themselves sure that tortoises in a desert
wilderness are things of reality and not the
apparitions of a dream. To their minds tor-
toises must have always been reptiles closely
associated with water, and to find them here in
the arid deserts far away from even a suggestion
of dampness must have seemed a most extraor-
dinary sight if not an anomaly. When their
travels had carried them well within the range
of this remarkable chelonian, these immigrants
must soon have seen a sufficient number of them
to feel assured that the first ones they saw were

258 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

neither luckless strays from some water-hole
nor wayfaring turtles homeward bound to the
ocean after a race with the desert hares; for in
those days Agassiz tortoises were plentiful all
over both the Colorado and Mohave Deserts
and in southern Nevada.

Generally these tortoises are found on the
flat plots of ground of the high rocky mesas
where a fair abundance of succulent, growing
herbs assures them of an abundant food supply,
at least during the spring season. During April
and May, when both days and nights are balmy
and warm, they are out feeding at all hours.
Often when traveling at night I have seen them
by aid of the brilliant moonlight. As soon as the
real blistering days of summer come, not a tor-
toise can be seen by day. No animals except a
few of the insects and lizards can stand the
intense heat radiated then from the glaring
rocks and sands and soda flats. At a point near
Amboy on the Mohave Desert the temperature
has been known to be as high as 136° F. in the
shade at midday, falling to only 114° F. by two
o’clock the morning following. A special ther-
mometer placed in the open sun recorded a

SSOMOV SAHONI NAALAIA ATTNA SI NAWIOAdS SIAL
SMOOU AHL
NAAMLAG ONIGIH-YALNIM SLI WOU GATMVAO Isa SVH HOIHM ASIOLUOL LUASAG V

THE DESERT TORTOISE 259

temperature of 249° F. To be out under such
conditions is literally to be cooked alive. The
tortoises are wise enough to be under the rocks
and bushes then and to confine their feeding to
the night hours. Sometimes in summer they pass
into a state of dormancy and do not eat at all.

In late October and early November, when
the nights begin to get snappy, they begin to
“hole up,” as the desert people say, seeking the
shelter of the ground for the winter’s sleep.
Tortoises found in winter are numb and seem-
ingly lifeless. Strange it is, but they do not
then have their heads drawn in under the cara-
pace for protection. The eyes are closed, and
nothing but heat will arouse them.

Desert tortoises, like turtles, are always slow
of foot, and when approached they seem to
know immediately that the best thing to do is
to stop abruptly and draw in their heads and
feet. In this latter act they are remarkably and
almost ridiculously quick — so quick, indeed,
that they give no creature the least chance to
injure them. As the head is drawn in, they
forcibly eject through their tiny nostrils the air
from their lungs and so produce a rather alarm-

260 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

ing hiss. Securely encased in their shells, like
non-resisting Quakers they wait in quietness
and find safety in passive resistance.

To the Piute and Shoshone Indians inhabit-
ing the Great Basin the economic importance
of this dry-land ‘“‘turtle’’ was considerable.
These native people, who knew no natural
repugnance to the use of lizards and snakes as
food, used tortoises freely, as the great numbers
of “‘shells’’ found around their old campoodies
show.

To-day many of them are caught by the
whites and cooked up into soups and stews, and
one may occasionally find the savory meat
offered on the tables of small-town restaurants
of the desert.

In so far as I can learn these remarkable
chelonians have, besides man, few enemies.
The foolish coyotes, hunger-bent, sometimes
make dolts of themselves by attempting to get
imside the shell. Many a tortoise bears on his
shell the toothmark-record of an encounter
with these wild dogs of the deserts. I am not
quite so sure but that a coyote might make a
wretched meal off a soft-shelled baby tortoise,

THE DESERT TORTOISE 261

swallowing it half-chewed like an oyster, but
as to getting a feast out of one of the hard-
carapaced adults, I am more doubtful. It
seems he might as well chew rocks. We can
well fancy the chuckling sense of pleasure the
tortoise, knowing his safety, has when he finds
himself rolled over and over and pawed about
by the foolish dog simpleton, or feels the long
sharp-fanged canine jaws harmlessly biting,
but never making more than a mere impression
on the hard-shelled armament. We can with
imagination’s aid see the outwitted coyote
finally leaving the tortoise in disgust and yowl-
ing in similar vein to the foolish fox who un-
successfully attempted to rob the vineyard,
“Oh, I never did like tortoise meat, anyway.”

But though the chelonian has been unharmed
by the coyote’s jaws, woe may yet overtake
him if by some unhappy chance the coyote on
departing should have left him lying flat on his
back on some perfectly barren level spot: his
end must now be death through starvation and
exposure. The shell of his back is so high-
domed that, struggle as he may, he cannot get
his clumsy feet to the ground to turn himself

262 _ DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

over. Had he been so fortunate as to have been
turned upside down on some place where tall
grass or tufted herbs were growing, there might
have been a chance for him. An extra long
stretch and twist of the neck and a bit of tortu-
ous struggling with the elephant-like rear feet
would under these circumstances have put him
over.

How does Gopherus! get his water? Watch
him in the early morning after a rain when
there are droplets of water or dew on the herbs,
and you will see him nosing up to them and
catching the dangling water pearls in his horny
beak. However, like his fabled racing competi-
tor, the hare, he gets most of his moisture from
the herbage he eats.

It is always a matter of speculation when we
attempt to give the age of an adult specimen.
A tortoise grows so slowly that it is almost
impossible to see any change in size in any
single year. The largest ones measure fifteen
inches or more across and are doubtless very
old. How many times have I wished, as I have
seen these venerable creatures gazing up at

1 Gopherus is the generic name for the tortoise.

THE DESERT TORTOISE 263

me from out their brown-irised eyes, that the
dumb mouth could speak and tell me of the
things that have come to pass during their life-
time in their big wilderness world.

Tortoises make excellent pets. Give them
but an out-of-the-way corner of your lawn and
they will stay with you for years, content on
such humble fare as lettuce and Bermuda grass
and asking nothing of you but the sufferance to
live. And why should we not learn something
from these little dumb brothers of ours?
Nature has withheld from them the gift of ex-
pression, but they may speak to us just the
same, teaching us simplicity, humility, and
gentleness.

There is a certain nobility of form and de-
meanor about these beautiful chelonians that
has always appealed to me, and it is always
with a sense of sorrow that I see them carried
off and piteously slaughtered. Several times I
have seen them piled by dozens in great crates
and ruthlessly taken to the city markets, there
to be butchered to satisfy the gormandizing
epicures who can afford and will pay such fancy
prices as this meat brings. Like lobsters the

264 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

poor things are thrust into boiling water (some-
times in cold water and then brought to a boil)
—a practice which must elicit the sympathy
of any one who has any sense of pity for God’s
sentient creatures.

THE VINEGAROON

THE VINEGAROON

“MATA VENADO! mata venado!’’! screamed a
Mexican laborer as he hastily jumped up from
his seat by the camp-fire. Judging from his
excitment I might have expected to see some
reptile as big as a rattlesnake crawling out from
the place where he sat. ‘“‘Mata venado! mata
venado!”’ he hysterically cried again as he
pointed down with quivering finger to a queer,
tan-colored spiderlike creature that ran swiftly
off his sleeve and almost into the fire.

“It is only a harmless vinegaroon,”’ I said.
“He cannot hurt you.”

But the poor man was so frightened he could
not be quieted, and all my explanations did not
avail to get him to sit down with us again,

“Did he bite you, sefior?” I asked.

“No! No! But he might, and if he did I would
die. That is what happens to all who are bitten.

1 Spanish name locally applied to the vinegaroon; literally,
kill deer. The common name is a misapplication of a name gen-
erally given to a Mexican species of whip scorpion which emits,
when alarmed, a vinegar-like odor.

268 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

Why, if a mule even drinks water from a trough
in which a vinegaroon has died, he will die too.”’

While not all Mexicans hold the vinegaroon
in such dread as did this man, yet there are
great numbers of them who feel just as he felt
about them. It is an old superstition that can-
not be uprooted.

I must admit that there is something un-
canny and strange-looking about these queer
animals with their four enormous, sharp-
pointed, protruding jaws, and it is not strange
that the ignorant are afraid of them. They run
around so bewilderingly fast and in such helter-
skelter fashion that you can never be just sure
when they are going tocrawl all over you. Small
wonder that they are called ‘‘wind-scorpions”
sometimes!

During the day the solpugids, as these crea-
tures are technically known, hide in crevices in
wood and under stones, and too often we find
them seeking refuge in the folds of the camp
blankets or in the pack boxes. At night they
come out, run about, and, while very actively
darting here and there, pounce upon insects
and suck them for their blood. The population

THE VINEGAROON 269

of an ant community is often called upon to
offer up a great number of individuals to satisfy
the appetite of these greedy pugnacious mon-
sters. Vinegaroons, that can get into wire fly
traps and are willing to remain in the “ prison
perilous,” kill a great number of flies and on
such a diet grow very fat and monstrously
large.

The solpugids do not depend upon the aid of
any poison in bringing their captured prey into
submission as do the spiders. According to
Comstock, no poison glands are found and the
bite, outside of its mechanical effect, is harm-
less.

These creatures seem to occupy an inter-
mediate position between scorpions and spiders,
but show in their anatomical structure a radical
departure from the structure of either of these.
The head and thorax are fused in one, and the
first pair of legs is joined to the head —a
most unusual position. The pedipalps (the
second pair of appendages lying on either side
of the mouth and which in scorpions serve as
pincers) are as long as the true legs and like
them are used as organs of locomotion. Through

270 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

this adaptation a solpugid has use of five pairs
of walking appendages instead of four as does
a spider. A spider breathes by means of book
lungs, but a solpugid takes in its air ‘through
tracheal tubes after the manner of insects.

THE DESERT HORNED LIZARD

THE DESERT HORNED LIZARD
(Phrynosoma platyrhinos)

ALL those who have walked abroad on the
desert at all observantly must have met that
little lizard of the sands which has achieved its
fame under the name of the horned toad. Be-
cause of its wide departure from the unprepos-
sessing snakelike form of many of its reptilian
congeners, and because of its unique and inter-
esting habits, it has doubtless earned the good
will of man more than any of our lizards. I have
yet to find among the roughest miners and
frontiersmen one who would purposely harm
one; they always speak of them fondly.

Near Coyote Holes the writer found a vet-
eran prospector named Johnson who had four
horned lizards about his shanty and he seemed
to think almost as much of them as he did his
faithful burros. It was almost pathetic and at
the same time pleasing to note what care he
bestowed upon them. He fed them almost
daily a meal of flies and talked to them as to

274. DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

children. There was seemingly even in the
hearts of those dumb creatures some feeling
of gratitude and fellowship. They apparently
knew their friend, and, when they heard him
walking about with his heavy hobnailed boots
on the rough board floor, they would shuffle out
on the step and bask there in the sunshine until
their beneficent keeper threw down some meal
worms or flies and talked to them. They would
lick up the flies and worms with their viscid
tongues and feed until full when they would
waddle away to ‘‘sleep it off.”

The ‘‘horned toad” is totally different in
appearance from any of our other lizards. The
body is unusually flattened, and he carries on
his head those enormous horns which are ‘‘ with-
out precedent among his modern kith and kin.”’

‘‘Any one who has seen a horned lizard on
the defensive,” writes Dr. Harold Bryant,
“cannot doubt the value of these horns as a
protection to the animal. With its head lowered
so as to receive any blow on the horns and the
large scales of the back elevated, it presents a
very formidable appearance.”

So perfectly does the horned lizard’s light

THE DESERT HORNED LIZARD 275

color blend with the gravel and sand that it is
almost impossible to see him when he is quiet.
Time after time when walking on the dunes I
have almost stepped upon horned lizards, and
would have crushed them under foot had they
not shambled off and through their motion
apprised me of their presence.

A detailed examination of the body brings to
light several other peculiar adaptations to a life
on the sands.

In many individuals the ear drum is almost
wholly concealed by a scaly membrane, a
peculiarity found only among desert species.
The ear is often further protected by folds in
the scaly skin of the short neck. Just beneath
the outer horny skin covering are numerous
pigment cells, each with its yellow pigment
granule or chromatophore. These highly de-
veloped color bodies are under the direct con-
trol of the nervous system and the animal is
able to make color adjustments with a fair
rapidity, so that if its wanderings carry it onto
darker or lighter soils it is capable of bringing
about a color coat suitable to its environment.

Mr. Leonhard Stejneger, who made the report

276 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

on the reptiles collected on the Death Valley
Expedition (1893), found that the horned toads
which lived on the intensely white alkali soil
around Ash Meadows in the Amargosa Desert
were much [lighter in color than usual. Other
specimens taken elsewhere showed great varia-
tion in color ranging ‘‘from a very pale, in some
nearly whitish drab-gray, to a vivid brick red.”

The bony, rigidly built head is short and
triangular in shape adapting it admirably as
a tool for burrowing into the sand. When a
horned lizard desires to cover himself for the
night, he forces his wedge-shaped head into the
sand just like a chisel, driving it forward by
means of the legs. To facilitate the movement
the whole body is wriggled back and forth. The
last act in the burying procedure is a flip of the
tail which covers the last visible appendage.
It is surprising in what a short time the animal
is completely hidden.

Horned lizards exhibit a marked preference
for the sandy washes and are never known to
occur on the rocky hillside. The reason for this
is obvious, it being absolutely necessary for
them to have loose sand in which to make their

THE DESERT HORNED LIZARD 277

shelter for the nights and cool days. They are
active only during the heat of the day, generally
confining their activities to the midday hours,
but even with them there is a limit to the
amount of heat they can stand. During the
hottest part of the summer season they seek
the shade or go under the sand during the hours
of highest temperature and do their feeding
during the late afternoon. The least cool
weather sends them underground. Their hiber-
nating season begins early in November and
continues until about the first of March.

Dr. Bryant, who has made a special study of
these reptiles, has accumulated abundant evi-
dence to show that these scaly animals are
exemplary destroyers of insects. Left to their
own devices they destroy an amazing number
of ants, noxious beetles, and flies. ‘‘Unless
very hungry,” writes Dr. Bryant, ‘‘live insects
alone satisfy a Phrynosoma. In fact, their eyes
seem unable to distinguish an insect unless it
moves, so that this may largely govern the
feeding habit. On seeing its prey, a Phrynosoma
has a habit of raising and lowering itself on its
front legs much as a lizard does when sunning

278 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

itself on a rock. Always when feeding it raises
itself well on its legs seemingly to avoid being
bitten. The moment the insect moves, the
horned lizard darts for it, catches it on the end
of its viscid tongue, swallows it alive, and backs
off again. Why this animal is never bothered
by being stung internally by the ants it eats
seems hard to explain. Certainly the mouth
and stomach must be particularly adapted to
withstand the poisonous sting of insects, for
when stung externally the lizard shows no little
discomfiture.”’

Sand, dirt, and even small pebbles are often
found in the stomach. These are probably
taken in the act of swallowing the prey. I have
found nematodes (parasitic round-worms) in
several stomachs I have personally examined.

It is believed that the road-runner and the
rattlesnake are his two worst enemies. Against
such an enemy as the road-runner, whose keen
eye is ever on the alert to discover fresh sources
of food to appease his enormous appetite, the
slow-moving horned lizard is practically de-
fenseless. If he is close to a hole or bush, or if
he taxes his wits to the limit, he may try to

THE DESERT HORNED LIZARD 279

escape by burying himself in the soil, but his
chances for escape are exceedingly slim.

The tradition found among the Indians to the
effect that a horned lizard is able to burrow its
way out of a rattlesnake’s stomach seems to
have some foundation in fact. ‘Rattlesnakes
have been found,” writes Dr. Bryant, “with the
head of a horned lizard protruding through the
body wall. Rattlesnakes have also been found
with the horns of a Phrynosoma caught in the
throat.”

Several young are borne at a time, each a
minute edition of its parents. They all have
their trial at life, but because of the many ene-
mies a great number never reach the adult state.
As soon as the spring well opens up, they are
very much in evidence in almost every wash or
dune area. When first borne they are so tiny
that it would seem that they were utterly in-
capable of taking care of themselves, but the
great number of adults to be seen at any time
is evidence enough that they are very well
able to provide themselves with both food and
shelter.

Horned toads in moulting shed, not the entire

SPILOGALE, THE SPOTTED SKUNK

(Spilogale phenax)
THE spotted skunk is an industrious, quick-
witted, brave little animal. Few men give the
credit that is due her for her good behavior
under trying circumstances, her quiet affection
and general inoffensiveness. A little spotted
skunk has lived under my house now these
three years, and in all this time she has behaved
herself as a perfect little lady, and has, so far as
I know, lived on good terms with all my animal
friends. She makes her evening calls about the
premises without sound or odor and assists in
work by picking up crumbs in the yard and
keeping the place comparatively free from
insects.

Skunks have their effective means of defense
— they realize its efficacy and use it when
severely provoked; but they realize also that
the fetid oils cannot be produced in unlimited
quantities, and so on the whole they are pretty
careful to emit unpleasant odors only when

Missing Page

Missing Page

284 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

driven to it by necessity. This is especially true
of the little spotted skunks. For this reason
they often live in peace with man, while the big
striped fellows are hunted down and shot.
Only once in all my out-of-door experience
have I come into unpleasant relations with the
spotted skunk, and this was under such cir-
cumstances that I felt the little creature was
fully justified in her acts. I had been sleeping
for some nights on a cot in a little sandy wash
on the banks of which was a thick mass of
grasses. Several times I had been awakened by
a skunk which was jumping about in the grass
catching the mischief-making mice. These
small rodents she caught by springing upon
them and then holding them with her forepaws
until she could kill them with her sharp teeth.
On this particular occasion the little mouse had
in some way the advantage, and, squirming
around, bit first, causing the skunk to give a
squeaky scream and unwittingly to make life
quite unbearable in her presence. I had read in
natural histories that the odor of a skunk could
produce unconsciousness. I can vouch now for
the truth of the statement. The odoriferous,

THE SPOTTED SKUNK 285

ethereal oil was shot into the grass immediately
beside my head, and the odor was so strong that
I was overcome and at least for several minutes
was quite unaware of all that happened around
me. As I came to my full consciousness, I found
my eyes smarting and my nostrils inflamed.
Had I been so unfortunate as to have been in
the direct path of discharge I might have fared
badly. Persons who have been hit directly in
the eye have been known to lose their sight.
The odor of the spotted skunk is not very
lasting in dry, sunshiny weather, and after I
burned off the grass next morning I found all
traces of the foulsome scent gone. The odor of
the striped skunk is much more nearly perma-
nent. Back of my camp on the Colorado Desert
I have a beautiful tussock of squaw grass
(Epicampes rigens) much resembling, though
much smaller, the pampas grass of Argentine.
On several occasions I had noticed that there
was a beaten circular path beneath it, but who
the pathmakers were I did not know. One night
I heard something playing under my cot, and,
stretching my head over the side, I saw by the
aid of the moonlight a couple of playful skunks.

286 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

They paid no attention to my intrusion, but
went on playing like two kittens. But when I
turned over in bed and made the springs squeak
and snap, they shot out from under that cot ina
hurry and made for the grass tussock. As they
went under, they were joined by a third frolic-
some companion whose presence I had not
suspected, and the three now began a playful,
hilarious, spirited skurrying and whisking about
under the grass on that half-concealed race-
track. This was so ludicrous and ridiculous in
its manner that I laughed aloud. Around and
around they went, faster and faster, faster and
faster, like boys playing tag, until suddenly one
of the skunks, possessed of some strange new
thought, shot off the grass-sheltered track at a
tangent, only to be followed by the others, into
the cat’s-claw bushes and up the hill. Now I
understood the origin of that mysterious grass
tunnel and judged by its well-worn appearance
that it served as a place of frequent frolics.
The playfulness of the spotted skunk is well
known to all who have observed it much. ‘I
never yet,’ said an old prospector, “saw a
little phobie skunk [the Western spotted skunk

THE SPOTTED SKUNK 287

is often referred to by cowboys and prospectors
as the “hydrophobia” or ‘‘phobie skunk”’]
what would n’t play with you if it just had a
good chance. They get tame just like a kitten,
and it’s no time until they’re crawlin’ all over
you trying to make you play with ’em. Onc’t
I had a little cabin made of palm logs and it
was n’t very extra built, so that it had a num-
ber of cracks in it. Now it beats all how them
little phobie cats can get through a crack. I
had n’t been sleeping inside many nights until
I had a visit from a skunk. She came through a
crack in the back end of the house every night
after that at just about dark. I got to feedin’
her bacon scraps, and the first thing I knew she
was lettin’ me pat her a bit and stroke her soft
hair. She used to like to crawl upon my head
and down on my shoulder — and then jump,
she would, square into my lap, and then race up
my arm to the top of my head again. A feller’s
hair gets powerful long a-stayin’ out in the
desert with no barbers around, and that little
skunk used to like to come in when I was layin’
down on my bed and then play with my locks.
And when she had a batch of little kittens,

288 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

was n’t she proud of them! She brought ’em
into the house there and showed ’em off to me
like the proudest mother you ever saw. And
the old mother skunk and the kittens used to
play around and purr and I’d give ’em stuff to
eat, and we just had a great time of it, them
skunks and IJ. It took all the loneliness out of
me, and I never will fergit ’em. Never a mouse
did I have around the place so long as they was
there. Better’n old cats, they are, to catch mice
any time.”

My friend, Dr. J. H. Kocher, recently told
me of an experience in the open that further
corroborates the prospector’s opinion of the
playful nature of skunks.

“Carl Eytel and I were camping out near the
Keyes Ranch in the mountains bordering the
Colorado Desert on the north,” said the doctor.
“The sky was overcast all the afternoon, and
toward evening it began to drizzle a little, so
that we were concerned about shelter. As luck
would have it some trappers who were camping
in the vicinity asked us to spend the night in an
extra tent they had near their camp and which
they were not using. There were lots of things

THE SPOTTED SKUNK 289

piled up on the floor in a sort of hit-and-miss
fashion, and a lot of dry pelts were hanging ona
wire strung lengthwise beneath the ridgepole,
but we managed to find room to open up the
two spring cots which were offered us. Mr.
Eytel found a place at one side of the tent, but
the only place for me was in the center just
beneath the skins. But I didn’t mind that;
they were dry and odorless and hung at least
six or eight inches above my head.

“Late in the night I was awakened by feeling
some animal of fair size crawling over my sleep-
ing-bag. I couldn’t imagine what it was, but
finally decided it might be a house cat belonging
to the trappers. As best I could in my tight
sleeping-bag I kicked about, hoping it would
leave me before long, when presently I caught
a little whiff of an odor that told me it was a
skunk. I called to Carl, hoping he could tell me
what to do to get rid of the animal. His only
answer, given in a whisper, was: ‘Better keep
still.’ So I did, and I am not ashamed to say
that for once I stuck my head under the blan-
kets. I was not going to risk my nose being
bitten by a skunk.

290 DENIZENS OF THE DESEK1L

“The skunk now began the most ludicrous
set of contortions and dances, stamping and
alternately pounding its feet on my breast and
rattling and playing with those dry pelts above
me. It would have been nothing but funny had
it kept it up only a few minutes, but when a
fellow has a skunk thumping his breast for a
full half-hour it becomes not only monotonous,
but positively nerve-racking. I again stirred
underneath the cover hoping that the creature
would move off, but the animal was so absorbed
in its play with those dried pelts that it paid no
attention to my movements at all, keeping up
its demoniacal dance just the same. Unable to
bear the strain longer, I called to Carl to chase
off the creature in some way, but again he only
advised me to ‘lay low.’ But this was now im-
possible, and I called to the trappers for aid.
Providentially they soon came with a lantern,
and the skunk, alarmed by their presence,
moved off, her beautiful tail hanging gracefully
above her. Before morning she came into the
tent again, but did not bother me. When I ex-
amined the skins next morning, not a single
one was found to be injured or ruffled up in any

THE SPOTTED SKUNK 291

way. The skunk had had a bit of pure play.”

I never eat bacon, but once in a while some of
the boys who come to see me bring a piece along
with them, and, when they go away, leave a bit
for my animal friends. Once not long ago when
they did this, the odors of the bacon soon drew
my skunk, which lives under the house, out
from her hole. She came about dusk, but, find-
ing me in the house, desisted from entering just
then. As soon as I went to bed, however, she
wiggled through a big crack in the chimney
and found the delectable meat. I heard her go
in; the characteristic wooden-legged, waddling,
shuffling gait was unmistakable. I immediately
got up, went into the house, and lighted the
lamp. There was my skunk on the shelf with
the bacon which she was now industriously
chewing, working her head from side to side,
cat fashion, to get better hold with her sharp-
pointed molars. As I approached within a foot
of her with the lamp, she seemed dazed for a
minute or two by the bright light. Her little
round jet eyes shone with much luster as she
looked at me. Skunks are afraid of quick move-
ments, as most animals are, and so I moved

292 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT

very slowly and she had no fear of me. Soon she
resumed her eating, stopping once in a while to
lick the grease off her chops and hands. A lad
who was staying with me at the time was very
eager to try picking the creature up by the tail
and thus carrying her out of the house head
down, having heard from woodsmen that there
is no danger of a skunk discharging from its
scent glands in this position. But I decided to
take no chances; the skunk went on feeding and
we to bed again.

For a while after that one or more skunks
came every night. Sometimes when I went into
the shanty to watch them they would retreat to
a corner or hide in the closet, and watch me
with their beady, black eyes from behind the
curtain to see what I was up to. Once one hid
in the closet all day. Thus far my furry neigh-
bors had never caused any disagreeable odors
in the house; yet I became uneasy lest on some
occasion they might be provoked and scent up
my quarters. Accordingly I nailed up all the
knot-holes and stopped the cracks, and espe-
cially one small hole in the closet through
which they most often entered.

THE SPOTTED SKUNK 293

Feeling that the house was now secure
against all intruders, I went to bed outside at
night with a mind at ease. About midnight,
soon after, I was awakened by something crawl-
ing on my covering above me. It was moon-
light, and when I peeked out I was surprised to
find a little spotted skunk perched on my
blankets. I rose up a foot and so tilted the
surface of the covers that the animal slid off to
the ground. But she almost immediately came
back, this time crawling upon my shoulder,
whence she tried to jump off onto the low-eaved
roof of my house by which I was sleeping. In
this attempt she failed, but did not give up
until she tried twice again. Persistence is one
of the virtues the skunk ever possesses.

The climax came that night when I awoke
feeling the skunk’s cold nose on my neck and
realized that she was trying to crawl under the
covers with me. This was undue familiarity
for a night prowler, and I quickly drew my
head under the covers and waited until my
friend decamped to the other side of the house,
as she soon did.

In her wanderings that night the skunk

294 DENIZENS OF THE DESEKL

finally spied out how to get up on the roof by
climbing onto an out-of-door cupboard, and
when next I saw her she was in the act of squeez-
ing herself through an unclosed crack up under
the eaves of the house, a place I hardly ex-
pected to find her. Her head, half her body, and
front feet were well inside, and with the hind,
long-soled paws she was scratching vigorously
on the boards outside, trying, by ludicrously
wiggling her body this way and that, to work
herself inside the house. Her persistence was
rewarded by her gaining entrance, and she got
her meal of crumbs and apples as usual.
Through the same opening she made her way
out before morning. Had you examined the
narrow passageway you could not possibly be-
lieve the animal could have got through it.
But where there is a will there is a way, even in
the mind of a skunk, and it is only too clever in
finding it out.

THE END

INDEX

INDEX

Alverson, A. H., quoted, 51.

Amargosa Desert, 276.

Amboy, 258.

Ammospermophilus leucurus. See
Chipmunk, antelope.

Anota macalli, See Lizard, flat-
tailed horned.

Anthophora. See Bees, mason.

Ash Meadows, 276.

Auriparus flaviceps. See Verdin.

Baeria, 92.

Bailey, Florence
quoted, 88.

Banning, Cal., 169, 176.

Barstow, Cal., 169.

Beaumont, Cal., 176.

Bees, mason, 125-32.

Beetle, pinacate. See Eleodes.

Bendire, Major Charles E.,
quoted, 16, 17.

Bighorn, desert, 135-42.

Blake, Prof. William P., 113

Blake Sea, 113, 114.

Bobcat, 157 n. See also Lynx,
desert.

Brandegee, Dr.
quoted, 229-32.

Bryant, Dr. Harold, 11,
quoted, 274, 277-79.

Cactus, barrel, 140, 227, 228.

Cactuses, used for protection,
69. See also Cholla.

Cahuilla, Cal., 186.

Callisaurus ventralis, See Lizard,
gridiron-tailed.

Canis ochropus See
Coyote.

Catherpes mexicanus conspersus.
See Wren, cafion.

Merriam,

Katherine,

277;

estor.

Chaparral cock. See Road-
runner. }

Chapman, Dr. Frank M., 82.

Chipmunk, antelope, 97-105.

Chipmunk, round-tailed. See
Squirrel, round-tailed ground.

Cholla cactus, Bigelow’s, 32-34,

69.

Chuckwalla, 241-44.

Citellus tereticaudus, See Squir-
rel, round-tailed ground.

Colorado Desert, 113, 114.

Colorado River, 113.

Comstock, John Henry, 269.

Corn Springs, 149.

Coyote, 110, III, 119, 120, 145-
59; and jack rabbit, 223-25;
and tapeworm, 230, 231; and
desert tortoise, 260, 261.

Coyote Cafion, 213.

Coyote Holes, 273.

Crotalus cerastes. See Sidewinder.

Cushing, Frank, quoted, 119,
120.

Death Valley Expedition, 276,
Dog, and coyote, 158.
Dresser, Mr., 8.

Eleodes, 117-22.

Emerton, James H., quoted, 187,

Epicampes rigens. See Grass,
squaw.

Eytel, Carl, 288-90.

Flycatcher, black-crested. See
Phainopepla.

Gaillard, Lieutenant, 62.
Geococcyx californianus.
Road-runner, .

See

298

Gilman, French, 83 91, 92, 195;

quoted, 195-9
Gnatcatcher, aopetisd 203,
204.

Gnatcatcher, plumbeous, 201-04.

Gopherus agassizit. See Tortoise,
desert.

Grass, squaw, 285.

Hare, black-tailed, or jack rab-
bit, 151, 223-32

Heleodytes brunneicapillus. See
Wren, cactus.

Hornaday, Dr. William T., 34.

Hydrophobia, 156, 157.

Indian Springs Ranch, 214.

Indians, 36, 243, 244, 260.

Indians, Fos ae 186, 187, 243.

Indians, Hopi,

Indians, Zuni, dieeate of, 119,
120,

Johnson, Mr., 273, 274.

Keyes Ranch, 288.

King, Dr. John C., quoted, 185,
186.

Kocher, Dr. J. H., quoted, 288—
90.

Lactrodectus mactans, 181-87.

Lankester, Sir Edwin Ray,
Es neta 151, 152.

erer, Gus, 149.

Lepus californicus _ deserticola,
See Hare, black-tailed.

Lizard, desert horned, 273-80.

Lizard, flat-tailed horned, 280.

Lizard, gridiron-tailed, 165-69,
(235-38.

Lizards, and road-runner, 11, 12;
and snakes, 165-70. See also
Chuckwalla.

Lumholtz, Karl Sofus, 158.

Lynx, desert, 211-15.

Mammoth Wash, 250.

INDLA

Mearns, Dr. Edgar A., 31, 36,

139.
Merriam, Dr. C. Hart, quoted,

242.
Mesquite, 174, 175.
Mistletoe, 174.

Mouse, spiny pocket, 57-65.

Neotoma intermedia desertorum.
See Rat, pack.

Opuntia, See Cholla.
Ovis cremnobates, 135 n.
Ovis nelsoni, 135-42.

Palm Springs, 82.

Pasiano. See Road-runner.

Pemberton, J. R., 14; quoted, 15.

Perognathus spinatus. See Mouse,
spiny pocket.

Phainopepla, 173-78.

Phoradendron californica, 174.

Phrynosoma platyrhinos. See
Lizard, desert horned.
Polioptila plumbea. See Gnat-

catcher, plumbeous.

Rabbit, jack. See Hare, black-
tailed.

Rabbits, pounding, 53.]

Rabies, 156, 157.

Ralston Desert, 237.

Rat, pack, trade, or wood, 25-53.

Rattlesnake, black, 169.

Rattlesnake, horned. See Side-
winder.

Rattlesnake, pallid, 253.

Rattlesnake, tiger, 253.

Rattlesnakes, and road-runner,
16, 17; and wood rat, 37; and
horned lizard, 278, 279.

Ridgway, Dr. Robert, 8.

Road-runner, 3-21; and horned
lizard, 278.

Sacaton Indian Reservation, 83,
QI, 92.
Sage, thistle, 129.

INDEX

299

Salpinctes obsoletus. See Wren, | Tapeworm, 230-32.

rock,

Salton Sink, 250.

San Gorgonio Peak, 121 2. ,

Sand-lapper, 235.

Sauromalus ater: See Chuckwalla.

Scorpion, wind. See Vinegaroon.

Shrike, 74.

pee a 247-53; and pocket
mice,

Skunk, eas, 283-04.

Skunk, striped, 285.

Skunks, pounding, 53.

Snake, gopher, 169, 170.

Snake, king, 165-69.

Snake, red racer, 76, 169.

Solpugid. See Vinegaroon.

Sparrow, desert white-crowned,
219, 220.

Spider, Latrodectus, 181-87.

Spiders, 270.

Spilogale phenax. See Skunk,
spotted.
Spring, 49.

Squirrel,
109-14.
Squirrels, pounding, 53.
Stejneger, Leonhard, 275, 276.
Stovepipe Springs, 236.

round-tailed ground,

Thrasher, Bendire, 92.

Thrasher, Le Conte, 191-98.

Toad, horned. See Lizard, desert
horned.

Tortoise,
257-64.

Towhee, Abert, 92.

Toxostoma lecontei. See Thrasher,
Le Conte.

Tumble-bug. See Eleodes.

desert, or Agassiz,

Verdin, 204-08.

Vinegaroon, 267-70.

Whitewater Ranch, 159, 195,
196.

Widow, black. See Latrodectus
mactans.

Wind-scorpion. See Vinegaroon.

Wren, cactus, 69-76, 92.

Wren, cafion, or white-throated,
79-84.

Wren, rock, 9, 80, 83, 87-93.

Zonotrichia leucophrys intermedia,
See Sparrow, desert white-
crowned.